


lives

by Elsey8



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gods, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Past Lives, Several AUs, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, each chapter will have its own warnings, every chapter will be at least teen, just trust me its good, kind of, they are gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28173747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey8/pseuds/Elsey8
Summary: Akira, a Trickster God of Chaos, is dangerously bored. His husband Goro, God of Order, agrees to play a game with him. It's simple in theory, they'll live lives that Goro makes up for them and throughout them Akira will try to save him from many different things. Unlimited tries, and Akira will remember everything even though Goro has to forget.But in practice...
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 100
Kudos: 287





	1. Pyre/Altar

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Rating: Teen  
> This chapter contains death.

“I’m bored.”

Goro looks at him blankly, then turns back to rearranging the clouds. 

“That’s dangerous,” he responds quietly. 

Akira keeps blowing them out of position, but Goro’s endless patience has him putting them back in their places every time anyway. 

He drapes himself over his husband’s back and looks down at all the mortals running around down below. They’re oblivious to the happenings of the gods, as always. 

He holds his hand up and envisions them being squished between his fingers. 

He really is bored, if he’s even bothering to pay any attention to the mortals. 

“We should...play a game,” Akira offers. 

“Absolutely not, my dear.”

“I promise, no funny business.”

“I do not believe you for a single moment.”

Akira cackles, kicking his feet up until he floats right over Goro’s shoulder to hover in front of him.

“No actually! I want to play a game. Not a human game. I want to make a bet with you.”

Goro’s eyes twinkle in that way, that way that means Akira has his interest. He’s already won when he gets that look. 

As put together as Goro pretends to be, as much order as he’s meant to keep, he can always be persuaded if Akira is the one who does the persuading. 

“What kind of bet?” Goro asks, voice just as disinterested as usual. 

But Akira knows better. He’s got him. 

“Entirely up to you.”

Goro gets a giddy little grin that plays on his mouth, and he raises his fingers to cover it as he narrows his eyes.

“Are you sure you’d like to play that game, my love? I don’t want you to mope for another millennia because you lost again.”

“Well I won’t lose! Give me your worst!”

Goro shimmers and appears as a mortal boy. 

Akira mourns the loss of his husband’s many eyes and too many rows of teeth, but finds himself twisting the hair between his claws. 

“This will be Akechi Goro,” Goro explains to him. “And I will put me, in his body, through hellish things.”

“Will you remember this?”

“No. This boy will keep aspects of me, but I won’t remember any of us.”

“What’s the bet?”

Akechi Goro’s eyes keep the same twinkle that Akira’s Goro has. 

“You will also become mortal, but you’ll remember. We’ll live lives together and you try to save me.”

“From what?”

“Oh different things,” Goro dismisses with a hand wave. “I’ll decide at the beginning of each.”

“Will I remember?”

“Yes. That’s the challenge.”

“How many tries do I get?”

“As many as you’d like. Until you get bored or until you win.”

Akira does get bored very quickly. But this intrigues him. 

“It sounds like the odds are stacked in my favor,” Akira comments.

“Say that to me again after the first life.”

Akira holds out his hand.

“Fine. Deal.”

“It’s a deal, my love!”

Goro shakes his hand, and Akira’s vision whites out.

Akira wakes up as a human child. 

He fixes his hair and finds that he knows things. How he’s supposed to act, what his circumstances are, the names of the people he needs to remember. Information pervades his mind, which is a nice detail. It wouldn’t do if he was living a life he had no idea how to live. 

He tells his “mother” that he’s going on a walk and steps outside.

The air is much different on the ground, and he whistles passively as he walks down the sidewalk. He’s just wandering, certain Goro will have put them in the same area. He’s sure he’ll find Goro when the time calls for it. 

He can’t imagine Goro will keep them apart for too long. 

“Aki!”

Someone crashes into him, and he looks straight into Akechi Goro’s face. He grins with a front tooth missing and bounces on his feet.

Akira smiles back at him. 

“Goro!”

“Come on, I have to show you something! This way!”

Goro bolts across the street and Akira forgets for too long that the game is to save him. The car crashes into him before Akira remembers what he’s supposed to be doing.

He opens his eyes to Goro laughing at him.

“It isn’t funny,” he grumbles.

“Bored already?”

“No way. I can win. Let’s go again.”

Goro kisses him.

“I’m having fun,” he purrs. 

This might be harder than Akira gave him credit for. 

And Akira’s vision whites out again.

He’s more prepared for the second time he wakes up, in a more mature body at least. Tall and awkward, but at least not a mere child. 

He has human relationships, and apparently a girlfriend he remembers when she texts him. 

He ignores her and walks outside to look for Goro. 

This time it seems like he’s in the middle of nowhere, houses few and far between. 

So he takes a sharp turn and drops right into the forest. 

“Oh Goro!” he calls, knocking on each tree he passes. “I bet any money you’re in here!”

He weaves through the woods, eventually settling against a huge oak tree right off the side of a small pond. 

“I guess I won’t find any cute boys in the woods,” Akira sighs loudly. “Too bad. My greatest fantasy is for some wild boy in the wilderness would take me away from my mortal life and—“

“Are you lost, you bumbling idiot?” 

Akira grins up at the figure who approaches him. He hums at the body Goro has chosen, clothes replaced by moss that grows in patches on his body. His hair has mushrooms growing out of it. 

“A hamadryad!” Akira claps his hands and laughs. “What a treat!”

“I said are you lost?”

“Sorry, I’m on your tree aren’t I? Did I wake you?”

Goro glares at him, so Akira puts his hands up.

“I’m not lost! I’m just wandering. I know how to get back.”

“Then leave.”

“Nah. Your tree is comfortable.”

“Go away.”

“I don’t think I will. Not yet. Why would I?”

Goro picks a mushroom from his head and drops it into the pond.

His husband is one thing but if...

A water nymph pokes her head above the water. She spits out a frog and grins with sharp teeth. 

“Okay, understood! I’ll go. But I’ll be back,” Akira swears, standing and backing up. “See ya cutie!”

He runs from the forest and back to his house and doesn’t stop smiling the whole time. 

He manages to stay away for a little bit. For a few days he adjusts to this life, since it’s clear Goro is in no immediate danger to his knowledge. 

Mostly he has to talk to people, but he does a few other odd things to prepare for the next time he goes out to see Goro. 

He gets to know the parents he’s been assigned, and meets the connections he has. His girlfriend smiles blankly at him when he breaks up with her.

Clearly she is just some joke to Goro, because she looks just a bit like Akira’s first wife. He’ll have to tell him that he broke up with her immediately when he sees him again for real. 

But by the third day of trying to behave, he finds himself going back to the woods without even really thinking.

He doesn’t get as far as to touch the tree when Goro stops him. 

“Don’t make me get the water nymphs again!” he threatens.

He has a flower growing on his face now, just underneath his eye. His husband is always so gorgeous, and for a second all Akira can do is stare. But when Goro backs up towards the pond, Akira finds his voice again. 

“Your tree is beautiful, I just came to bring you, and it, a present.”

“A present?”

Goro’s eyes are shining with intrigue. He looks Akira up and down like he can find the present just by looking. He steps just a little closer. 

“Tell me your name and you can have it.”

“Goro. Give it!”

Akira hands him the wind chime he made, from dry wood and things he’s found during various strolls. Abandoned keys, broken pieces of glass, bent silverware, and a gorgeous silver bell he’d found half buried in his backyard. 

Goro holds it up to the light, and makes a sound like rustling leaves when the wind comes through to make everything clink together. The bell rings softly. 

He scales the tree, and suddenly the wind chime is hanging from a thick branch, and Goro hangs upside down from the same branch.

“Thank you!”

“Well you’re welcome. I take it you don’t hate me anymore?”

“I like gifts!” 

“I’ll bring you more gifts, then.”

“Yes!”

Suddenly Goro drops from the tree and with a hiss he looks up at where there’s giggling coming from higher up in the leaves.

“Go back to your own tree!” he yells, rubbing the back of his head. “And leave my human alone too while you’re at it!” 

_ His  _ human, huh? 

Akira rests with his back to Goro’s tree and watches the little girl who drops down scramble to run back to a younger looking tree on the other side of the pond. 

He pulls out the pan flute he ordered, the first time he’s playing one with a human mouth. 

He raises it to his lips and plays their song. 

He knows this Goro won’t recognize it, but he still seems entirely hypnotized by it. He sits in front of Akira with these wide eyes, blinking in wonder.

He doesn’t interrupt for even a moment, but when Akira is done he reaches out to press the flute back to his lips.

“Play it again,” he demands.

So he does. 

Again, and again. Until the sun starts to go down and Goro sadly says he should go.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promises. “I’ll play you more songs.”

“And bring more gifts?”

“Yeah!”

Goro smiles at him, then picks the flower from his face and hands it over.

“I saw you staring at it,” he says shyly. “If you put it in water it’ll bloom! It’s a thank you gift.”

Akira walks backwards to watch Goro until he can’t see him anymore. 

And he heads home to watch the flower bloom when he submerges it in water. It makes his whole room smell like the forest.

He’s surprised he hasn’t already won, but goes back the next day anyway to play more music for Goro. 

This time he brings food. A slice of apple pie he baked. Goro has always loved apples, and even in this life he seems to devour it with the hunger of a starving man. 

His eyes are twinkling, alive and happy. 

And he picks apples from the tree of the other girl to give to him to bake. She yells at both of them, and seems grossed out about the pie. But she still likes the music, and he wins her over with a well placed wind chime of her own. 

It takes Goro approximately four months, two weeks, and three days to fall in love with him. Akira lost track of the hours as it was happening, so he can’t be exact. 

But Akira doesn’t win when Goro tells him that. Regardless, Akira says what he’s planned on saying every time. What he’s said to Goro many times before. 

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

Which is true. Forever ago, when the god of chaos and the god of order met, Akira knew Goro had to be his. His Trickery, Goro’s Law. 

They were spelled together in the cosmos, and immediately got on like flames to fire. 

Goro kisses him, and over the next few months that’s how they live. Akira visits the forest almost every day to visit. He almost always has gifts, and no matter what he always plays music. 

Goro’s favorite is still their song, and Akira wonders if some part of him doesn’t remember. His eyes get far away sometimes when he’s listening, like he’s trying to grasp something just a little too far out of his reach. Goro’s reality he’s created is no doubt absolute, there’s no way for him to truly know or remember. But Akira hopes at the very least that his soul knows and appreciates it. 

And then one day there are people in suits looking at the forest. 

“I was thinking we could level the entire area and build a couple houses, maybe condos?”

Akira should’ve known. Humans. Mortals and their selfish, hopeless quest for more. More money, more land, more more  _ more _ . 

This is what he’s supposed to save Goro from. A hamadryad. What other reason than this?

“Excuse me, what about the bodies of water in there?” he asks calmly, stepping around them.

He sets a foot on the trail he’s started to wear into the forest floor. 

“We’ll fill 'em in, don’t worry about it kid.”

“What about the nymphs?”

“The what? He’s bonkers, just ignore him.”

Oh wonderful. Akira clenches his fists and stalks down the trail to Goro’s tree. He looks around when Akira approaches with a smile.

“We made you a gift!”

He’s sitting with the girls. The other hamadryad is Futaba, young and tied to an apple tree. She’s almost certainly modeled after a minor god of machinery that lives somewhere on Goro’s family tree. She’s young still, Akira hasn’t even met her yet. The water nymph is Haru, rather feisty although she’s sweet once you get to know her. She’s modeled after the goddess of wealth the two of them get along with rather well. 

Together they all present him with a wind chime of their own. Dried mushrooms and apples, flowers, leaves, a bit of mud it seems. Nothing that would even clink like in a wind chime, but he takes it with a smile anyway.

“Thank you.”

He knows what the answer is. 

He can’t move the pond. He doesn’t think he can move Goro’s huge oak tree either. 

“This place is being developed for building,” he explains quietly. “They’re going to cut down the trees and fill in the ponds.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Goro hums. “I rather dislike the sound of chainsaws.”

“I know! They’re so loud,” Haru complains.

“Aw man Akira, where are you gonna get your premium apples when I’m gone?”

They all laugh. 

Akira looks down at his feet. He can’t win this round, can he? The hell can he do? 

He’s a teenage boy to a whole company. Clearly these three aren’t budging. 

The best he can hope for is a reset. 

“Well Akira, do you mind if I asked you something?” Goro asks him. 

He’s smiling playfully, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Anything, my lovely.”

“Cut me down yourself.”

Goro’s hand comes up to rest on his cheek. He strokes the skin with careful fingers and hums softly. Hums their song. 

Goro’s tree is a huge, old oak. Akira hopes some of his strength will carry over. Even just a fraction would help.

“Alright. I will.”

Akira has several months to do this. The company needs to go through all these fickle things before they can start, and Akira gets to go into the woods with a sharp axe and get to business quietly. 

The first session he’s there all day. It hardly harms Goro this first time, he seems a bit tired but otherwise not too worse for wear. Akira plays him their song and goes home. He thinks it hurts him more than it hurts Goro. 

It takes a week of sessions like this before it actually starts to affect Goro.

His skin goes pale, but he still seems okay. He assures Akira that he’s not in any pain. 

Akira makes more progress, and the flowers on him all wilt and die. The one he keeps at home still remains alive and healthy for now, at least. 

More progress, and Goro stops growing mushrooms. More progress, the moss starts to fall off. More progress, Goro can’t stand up anymore. 

Every single session, Akira sits in front of him to play their song. He still brings presents, he still does all of the things he normally would. He just also kills Goro, bit by agonizing bit. It hurts Goro more every time. 

He understands the sentiment, to want to be felled by the hands of someone you love rather than someone you hate. That’s why he keeps doing it, even though it’s hard. At least this way, Akira can be sweet. He can kiss the bark he cuts into like he can make it any better that way. He can be kind enough to hold Goro through it and assure him everything will be alright. He’s not good at this, he’s never chopped down a tree a day in his life, but he is good at loving Goro. So he can do at least this much. 

Two months in, Goro goes blind. Akira adjusts the gifts he brings so he can still enjoy them. 

Goro starts to get very sick. It seems he’s always coughing up his lungs or sleeping. Even when he falls asleep, Akira plays him their song. He hopes his sleep is at least peaceful. 

Sometimes Futaba and Haru watch, but he sees them less the more progress he makes. He wishes he had the privilege to not have to watch. 

It’s the third month he gets close enough to fell the tree. He’s been dragging it out. He refuses to come every day, refuses to work for too long. And still, he meets the deadline with time to spare. 

He stops working for a few days, coming to just see and talk and bring gifts and love Goro. But it’s clear he’s suffering, in pain now that the end is so close.

So Akira doesn’t prolong it. He plays their song on the pan flute, leaning against Goro’s tree with Goro braced against his chest. Goro is humming along, voice strained and clearly in pain. They’re swaying together. But really it’s more like they bounce, Akira slamming his back into the tree over and over and over.

Something cracks and it tips, Goro crumpling to the ground and out of his arms.

It takes a minute this time. 

Akira walks all the way back to his house and pulls the dead flower out of the water before his eyes open and he sees his husband again. 

“That was beautiful,” Akira compliments. “Tragic, though, wasn’t it?”

“I like my dramatics.”

Goro let’s Akira kiss him, fuss over him. 

Akira is still having fun, though. He did like winning over Goro’s stubborn heart all over again. And Goro is smiling so happily, like he has so many more ideas and he’s just excited to play them out. 

“Alright, hit me,” Akira gives.

Goro kisses him deeply and Akira’s world goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We men are wretched things.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	2. Pyrrhic War/Martyr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Teen  
> This chapter is a royalty AU that contains A LOT of death, and depictions of a war.

When he comes to he’s draped in robes and a crown is nestled in his still messy curls. 

“Prince Akira, you can’t go wandering off so much. You are the beloved child of this nation, we can’t have you getting lost.”

He’s rather short, probably a child again if he trusts what he was just told. He looks up at the man who’s speaking and shrugs.

“Don’t cause too much trouble,” he sighs.

“I won’t!” 

“If you’re going out bring a guard with you!”

Akira is already running right out the door. He grabs the nearest, nicest looking guard and drags them along with him.

“Your Highness, I don’t think you’re allowed in town...” she says. 

“Nonsense! You’re with me, it’ll be fine,” he insists, tugging her with him.

His feet carry him into a small but cozy looking town. People bustle around, going about their lives. Most stop to acknowledge him, and a particularly sweet lady bends down and hands him a warm pastry. He thanks her profusely and she just dismisses it as he shoves it down his throat.

Human food is the best. 

But he should find Goro, even if he likes being important and given free stuff.

Goro could already be in the castle, but that’ll be easier to check than the town, so he’s starting here. He walks down the streets, trying to catch the sight of him between the bodies and buildings. He’s searching for that head of hair, for the flash of his eyes from the dark, but for a long time he’s left with nothing but everyone else getting in his way. 

In the middle of town, there’s a beautiful fountain. And at the base of the fountain is a boy laying over it who looks like he’s dying. Dirty, starving, and hurt. A woman is knelt next to him, trying to get him to eat the food she has. It doesn’t seem like he even sees her. He’s not even opening his mouth for the food, simply staring into the water blankly. 

His hair is that beautiful color Goro chose, but it’s tangled and shorter. 

“Excuse me, but are you okay?” he asks, crouching on the other side of him.

Beautiful eyes with no spark lazily look up at him. 

A slow shake of his head.

“We’re taking him back to the palace,” Akira commands. “Now, let’s go.”

She doesn’t even argue, just picks Goro up like he weighs nothing and walks with Akira back to the castle. Goro doesn’t struggle, doesn’t say a single thing to argue one way or the other. He just accepts it, watching the sunset with something empty. 

The information is coming to him now, like it was on a delay. Akira wonders if Goro anticipated him failing already by now. 

His guard is Sae, probably modeled after a goddess Goro works with often. He’s the Prince of this kingdom, and the man from the beginning was his advisor. Definitely Sojiro, now that Akira is thinking about it. The same eyes as one of Akira’s advisors. 

He thinks the woman who gave him sweets was Haru, but he can’t remember her face well now.

“Another stray?” 

Sojiro, long suffering even here, looking disapprovingly at the now unconscious form of the boy cradled in Sae’s arms.

“It’s no use arguing with him,” Sae says. 

Good, that she already knows that. 

“I know. Get the poor kid to the infirmary, I’ll get food for him. You keep an eye on our Prince here, make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.”

“Of course.”

Akira behaves. He sits patiently and reads the book Sae gets for him passively while he waits. 

It takes a few days of waiting for Goro to wake up, during which Akira just reads or takes walks or sometimes sneaks in to just watch him for a while. He worries sometimes, but as long as he keeps an eye on Goro he thinks it’ll be okay. Goro is getting better, not worse, and Akira is really important or something so Goro should be getting the best care he possibly can. 

Somehow, even reasoning with such logic, Akira doesn’t think he can really calm down until he sees Goro open his eyes again. 

And he does wake up. But Akira doesn’t win.

He wonders just how infuriating his husband can possibly get. But of course it can’t be easy, if Akira gets infinite tries. That’s what makes it fair.

Akira goes to see him. Goro is sitting up in the bed, and he just barely looks up when Akira enters the room with Sae trailing behind him. 

“I’m Akira! I’m the Prince,” he introduces himself.

Goro looks confused. Still tired, still messy. But he’s clean, he’s awake, and he stares at Akira like he can almost maybe remember. 

“Goro,” Goro says.

“Okay Goro! Do you wanna play a game?”

Goro pulls a face, like he knows he shouldn’t play games with Akira. But he nods. 

The nurse tells them to be careful, and not to let Goro strain himself too much. But Goro rolls his eyes when he turns away from her after agreeing so cheerily, and Akira grins at him when he asks to be brought outside. 

They spend all day chasing each other around the palace grounds, they eat when Sojiro brings them food, and at the end of the day Akira starts teaching him how to read.

They get a whole year like this. Goro is sharp, he picks up things quickly and easily masters them. He impresses everyone around them, and Sojiro compliments him on finding such a competent boy to keep at his side. 

Goro’s room is next to his in the palace, even though Akira had to fight tooth and nail to make it that way. He’s supposed to be constantly surrounded by guards, protected at all times from all angles. But he makes Sojiro just expand the bubble, so he and Goro are  _ both  _ surrounded by guards at all sides. 

They always end up in one room or the other, staying up reading or writing or playing games or whatever else they can think to do. Goro doesn’t talk much, and he doesn’t like dealing with fire, so Akira fills the dark and the silence most nights. 

Goro only gets smarter, stronger, and more attached to Akira the more time passes. 

But the year comes to an end, and Goro approaches him. 

His posture straightens properly, he kneels formally to him and bows his head. 

“Goro, come on. You don’t have to do that,” Akira complains. “We’re friends!”

“I have to, now.”

“Why?”

Goro looks up at him, and grins faintly this time.

“I’m starting the training to become a knight.”

Akira wants to argue. Goro is still young, they’re both so young he doesn’t know if Goro even has the strength to lift a sword. It could be dangerous, and Akira doesn’t want Goro in any type of danger because all he can remember is how quickly life can be ripped away from him. 

Akira has never been able to stop Goro from getting what he wants though, least of all now when he doesn’t even have the sway of being his husband. 

And of course, Goro takes to it as well as he takes to everything he sets his mind to.

They grow up together, always pushing the other to get better. Akira learns all the things he has to do as the future leader of an entire nation, and Goro learns how to protect him. Its fine, Akira keeps a close eye on him and makes sure he becomes strong enough to stand more than on his own. 

And it takes years this time. Goro is being stubborn. 

Akira gets the hang of the human ages, and he and Goro were only seven when they first met in the town square. And they’re sixteen, when Akira finally gets sick of waiting and has to tell Goro he loves him. Nine years, where they grow and learn from one another and Goro tries to keep a stubborn amount of distance from them despite how close Akira tries to get. 

He brings them out to the nearby lake that they used to swim in all the time when the weather was warm. In recent years, Goro’s training has gotten more difficult and he spends more time with the guards than with Akira. Still, Goro sets this moment aside for him and Akira looks him in those eyes that have slowly regained life and light throughout the years. 

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you,” Akira confesses. 

“No you haven’t.”

Goro turns away, and starts walking back towards the palace. 

“Wait!” Akira catches his wrist. 

Of course, Goro only turns in a smooth movement and flips him right onto his back. Akira gets the wind knocked out of him and he watches the clouds lazily move across the blue sky above him as he gathers his shattered pride up. 

Goro leans over him from above. 

“I’m training to become your Knight. You can’t say that to me anymore, we aren’t seven years old with no consequences to anything we do. You’ll be the King, I’ll be your Knight, and that’ll be it,” Goro says firmly. 

“But what do you want?” Akira presses. 

“I shouldn’t have to lecture you of all people on remaining proper, when it’s been drilled into both of our heads for the past decade. We have roles to fill, you have an heir to produce and some arranged marriage to fulfill for the sake of the kingdom. Everything we do is meant to be in the benefit of the masses,” Goro raves, pacing as Akira finally struggles back to sit up. 

“But what do  _ you  _ want?” 

“It doesn’t matter! I need to protect you, that is now my sworn duty. I will not abandon my post, my whole purpose. I need to pay you back for what you did for me.”

“Goro.”

“What?! Just take it back! We can’t do that, okay?” Goro glares at him in utter defiance. 

“But what do you  _ want?” _

“You, of course I want you! I’ve always wanted you, how much more obvious could I have been about that?!” 

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Goro presses him back to the ground and slots their lips together. They come together over and over until neither of them can even breathe, and when a guard catches them Goro just threatens his life and they move to his bedroom. 

Akira has so much fun surprising Goro with how well he knows him. How he likes being kissed, where he’s sensitive, what he loves being told. Goro will always melt for praise no matter what form he takes. 

When they turn eighteen, Akira becomes the King and Goro is officially appointed as his Knight. 

During the hours where they sit through meetings, hearings, councils, they sure are something. Goro stands by his side with perfect posture, his hand always just an inch from his sword. Akira is perfectly fine at acting the way he’s meant to, bringing a kingdom made up in Goro’s mind to prosperity with a kind smile. 

When they’re alone, they complain endlessly about the fake masks they have to wear around others and revel in taking them off of each other. There is something intimate and secret about what they share, and Akira knows that they aren’t as secretive as Goro believes. But nobody dares breathe a word out of it. 

They’re happy, the kingdom is thriving, but...But the game doesn’t end. 

And when he’s nineteen, a war starts. And he can’t stop it. He tries. Peace talks, offerings, desperate pleas and treaties he writes with his own hands. He can’t stop it. 

He’s clearly not supposed to stop it.

Most days he sits with the head of the guards and talks about war. He talks about war for months. Strategy, resources, where things need to be and what they should do. How to push off the invading force, where the fights need to happen and where they can give an inch to take two back. 

Akira has never liked wars, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to fight in one. How to command one. He is more than intimate with the experience of violence and bloodshed, and he knows how to deal in the least casualties to the quickest outcome. 

But Goro knows what he knows, and he knows how to sneak past all of Akira’s usual strategies. The war Goro envisioned ends up on Akira’s doorstep. 

Of course, he should’ve known. 

Distract the rest of the pieces and you have a clear shot to the king. He should’ve been thinking about Goro’s chess strategy, should’ve known not to send all his best pieces out and away. 

All he has is his Knight at his side and a few pawns. 

“Goro, if you try and die for me out there I’ll kill you,” Akira warns.

He takes his own sword and a bow. If it’s him and Goro, surely they can do this. 

Goro seems to have retained his reflexes, he seems to know what he’s doing. Something possesses him when he fights, like his body remembers what his mind doesn’t. 

And Akira knows. He knows, so he knows that these soldiers will have Goro’s touch and that Goro hates archers. Goro never knows how to fight against long range, so Akira brings his bow and keeps Goro close to him. 

They can do it.

“Noted,” Goro responds dryly.

It’s easy at first. 

They stand back as other pawns fight. Akira pulls his bow back in earnest and fires deadly shots as fast as he can. He watches the frontline pile up in bodies, even as the rest of the army pushes forward. 

Goro doesn’t leave his side for a second. He just watches with careful precision, eyes flicking over the field and lying in wait. Even as the fight creeps ever closer. 

The first soldier to run up at them gets Goro’s sword sliced across their neck. Goro kicks their body down the steps and calms again, observing with a careful coldness. 

It continues like this for some time, but eventually Akira has to drop his bow and pick up his sword.

There’s still so many left.

“We can do this,” he assures Goro. “As long as you don’t go dying on me we’ll win this. And then I win.”

But Goro has never been the type to listen to him. He’s stubborn, and infuriating, and Akira married him for all of those reasons and more. 

Devotion is a fickle monster. Within gods it simply means to promise forever with your fingers crossed behind your back and if you’re really lucky you find a true devotion and keep your forever promise. But for many gods, forever is too long. So far it hasn’t proven too much for him and Goro. 

Within humans, devotion is a deadly disease. To devote yourself means so much of the very little time you have left. Akira’s biggest mistake here was ever allowing Goro to devote himself to him. He should’ve seen the death it spelled, the easy assumption that well of course telling Goro not to die wouldn’t work. In the event that it is devoter and devotee, the devoter will always die first. 

Akira gave an order, as a King to his Knight would order. To demand an obedience on par with a hive mind, and yet. And yet. 

Here, in this game, Akira should’ve known better than to assume just because his position is supposed to be absolute doesn’t mean Goro would obey him. Only Goro would ignore his orders. Only Goro would see the shot coming, only Goro would think to get in the way rather than get him out of the way, only Goro would catch the arrow in his stomach for Akira even when his only order was for Goro to live.

Ever devoted to him in these final moments. 

Sae comes to Akira’s rescue when he drops down to pull Goro into his lap.

“We can’t treat him right now!” Sae growls, parrying a blow. “Help me finish this fight!”

It doesn’t matter. The fight doesn’t matter. 

Akira presses his hand over the leaking wound on Goro’s stomach and sighs tiredly. 

“Twelve years and a stray arrow gets you?” he asks fondly, brushing Goro’s hair from his face. 

It’s long now, soft and cared for. Goro grins up at him recklessly. 

“What else?” he gasps.

“You and your dramatics.”

“I love you.”

Akira brings him up to rest on his chest, comfortable. As comfortable as he can be while he’s dying. 

Sae falls in front of them, and there’s only stray pawns between them and the rest of the army now. It’s not as if the war matters now. 

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you,” Akira tells him. 

“You always say that.”

“You love it.”

“You’re so—“

A sword pierces Akira’s chest and he opens his eyes with a gasp.

Goro looks quite smug again, but helps him up anyway. His eyes are all bright, and he's got this look on his face like he's just waiting for Akira to give up. 

They're far too competitive for one another sometimes. 

Akira underestimated human devotion, that’s true. But there’s something else that’s annoyed him. 

"That wasn't fair," Akira accuses. 

"Using what rules?" Goro rolls his many eyes and grins widely. "You said I could choose the game, and I'm having fun."

"You chose a character who's supposed to die for their charge. Someone I couldn’t have stopped like that no matter how hard I tried with your stubborn resilience. You must’ve known that. I don't think it's fair."

"Fine. Like you've ever cared about that. I'll show  _ you  _ fair."

Akira still drags him in for a kiss before his vision goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	3. The Great/The Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Explicit  
> This chapter contains death, explicit depictions of violence, sexual content(sort of), and murder(regicide).

When Akira comes to, it's to a sword harshly clanking against his own. In his state of shock he almost drops his weapon, but uses the slack as an opening to a feint so he can weave around his opponent and slam his elbow into their back. They fall, and he steps on their wrist until they drop their weapon. With his sword point at their neck, he hears someone declare him the winner. 

Sae again, when he looks. 

His opponent is some random face he doesn't recognize, but he helps them up anyway and says something or other about how it was a good fight. 

"Good job, Akira. One more fight. Are you excited?"

She doesn't even seem to entertain the notion that he might lose. The thought makes him smile. Goro intends for him to win easily here, for whatever this may be.

"Super excited," he confirms, inspecting his blade. "When's the fight?"

She laughs at him, patting him on the back. 

"Have your lunch, soldier. The fight will be in the royal chambers after the family eats. You should take the break to get some food in you and rest."

He nods along with a smile. He doesn’t ask what he’s fighting for, and he fails to ask who his opponent will be, but he figures it doesn't matter anyway. He wonders if it'll be someone he recognizes, a character modeled after someone he knows. But as he eats his sandwich passively, he thinks that whoever it is can't be too hard to beat. Goro has always seen him as so strong, so in this world he's created Akira doesn't think there's someone who could really oppose him. 

Eventually he overhears what the competition is for. The winner will be declared the Prince’s Knight on the spot, and take a post to serve him until either of their deaths. 

Good, he's sure the Prince he's going to serve will be Goro. He's been put in a perfect spot to save him over and over, as many times as necessary in order to win. 

He has to admit, this is as fair as it gets.

Sae brings him into the wide open room with the thrones on clear display. There's a King, an absent Queen's throne, a Princess who looks a bit like Futaba, and Goro sitting with his legs crossed in the throne right next to the King. The King looks remarkably like the original god of order Goro overthrew when he rose to power. 

"Pleased to be in your company," Akira says, kneeling respectfully. 

It's easy to do if he pretends the only company he means is Goro's. 

"Let's get this over with. I'm sure he'll fail like all the others."

Akira grins up at Goro and draws his sword. 

Of course, who else would he fight?

Goro stands from his throne, setting his crown down on the empty seat. He draws the blade from his hip and waits expectantly for Akira to come to him. He’s pulled taut, ready to move when he needs to even as he watches carefully and comes across as far too wide open for his own good. 

But it's deadly to make the first move against Goro, his reflexes are far too good for that. Allowing him any moment to study the way Akira fights spells defeat. 

So Akira waits for him instead, standing back at a distance and trying to be obvious about the fake openings he's showing. Goro will get annoyed eventually, staring him down like this. So Akira doesn't budge even when Sae urges him to hurry it up. 

Goro lunges, going for one of the openings he left at his stomach. In a flash, Akira pulls his sword back to deflect the blow. It's an awkward angle, and the parry is sloppy, but it catches Goro off guard. 

He's off balance, and Akira goes on the attack.

Goro fights so calmly. He's good at defense, and he can spend forever fending off an attack while he learns every move and every tell until he plans a counter. It feels like you chip away at him over and over only for him to suddenly move and have you on your back. 

But Akira has found the one weakness in Goro's strategy, after so long being married to him. And that's to fight dirty. Fight for every upper hand he can manage. It pisses Goro off, and he calls it cheating, but there's no rules in a fight like this. Life or death. 

Akira brings his leg up and aims a kick to Goro's chest so he stumbles back. Goro's sword catches his pant leg and rips it open, and Akira moves through the pain and brings the motion to completion. He swings his leg around so he can spin, planting both feet firmly on the ground and slamming the hilt of his sword into Goro's throat with a momentum he swings with, both hands pulling the weight of the sword down on the weak point. Goro wheezes and glares at him, backing up to circle him again. 

He's studying, watching, learning. 

Akira spits in his face.

He laughs when Goro gasps, and the moment of surprise gives him an opening to move. He swings at Goro with his non dominant hand. Goro rolls his eyes as he moves to block it, and doesn't notice Akira has dropped his sword and jumped forward. His hands close around Goro's shoulder and he throws all of his body weight onto him to knock him down. Goro still swings, and he catches Akira's shoulder in a rather nasty move, but Akira pins his wrists. 

Goro's sword makes a loud noise in the otherwise fairly silent room when it hits the floor. 

"Do I win?" Akira asks, panting. 

"I concede," Goro murmurs. 

He grins wildly, sitting back on Goro's stomach and clutching at the wound on his shoulder. 

"Akira, please get off the crown prince," Sae scolds. 

He laughs, feeling the adrenaline fade from him as his wounds make their pain known. He is not getting up, his leg feels like it's burning. 

"Can't move," he slurs. "He got me good."

"Same here," Goro whispers, wincing as he rubs his throat. "Dirty fighter."

"Thank you."

Goro huffs, then wheezes out a cough and a choked, “Bastard.”

"Happy to be in your service," Akira says, bowing his head best he can in his state. "I look forward to working for you."

"Was spitting in my face necessary?"

"Yes."

"Mm. You're quite annoying."

"Thank you!" 

Sae drags him up, sighing as she looks him up and down. 

But in the end he made a point. 

"You got severely injured during the fight to take down a single opponent," the King starts. "I don't know—"

"He was holding back," Goro interrupts. "He didn't take a single swing at me with his blade. He was holding back so he didn't actually hurt me. He didn’t even hit me properly."

"Obviously," Akira sighs. "I may be a scrappy fighter, but I'm not about to maim the Prince. What kind of Knight do you take me for?"

And he knows at the very least, he's won Goro's approval. And not much else matters.

Goro hates him at first. He respects him, sure, but he's far from liking him. It's a tolerance that comes about because of necessity. Still, Akira fulfills his duty to the best of his ability, which extends rather far. Any more than that can wait.

Akira finds only hatred for even just the mirror of Goro's father personified here. He heard only stories about the man, long after Goro and his many siblings overthrew the man and left Goro in charge. The new God of Order. He wishes he had been around to see it, to see his husband in his first days of being such a new god. He must've been just...glorious. 

Here and now, the longer this man is in power, the angrier Goro is. He gets bitter, and he smiles less and less. 

So Akira kills him. He sneaks into the King's room in the middle of the night and shoves a pillow over his face until he suffocates and dies. And then he returns to his post outside of Goro's room.

In the morning, everything is chaos. Akira stands just inside Goro's room now, in case the unknown assassin returns for the rest of the family. Of course, Akira won't harm anyone else, but they don't know that. 

Goro sits on his bed, and he laughs. He holds his face in his hands and laughs and laughs and laughs. He doesn't shed a single tear, and when those sharp eyes turn on him, he just grins back. He laughs a little when Goro comes over to take his hands. He inspects them closely, nails digging into the veins in them, as if somewhere in his palms there's proof of what happened. 

Goro doesn't need proof, because the second he looks at Akira, he seems to know anyway. 

"You killed him," Goro accuses. 

"I did, my Prince," Akira agrees easily. 

"Thank you."

Akira thinks this Goro is just a little too far gone for him already. He may be out of his depth if any type of madness is consuming him, but he's not giving up now. There’s still something familiar in Goro, a sense of justice does not a mad man make. 

Goro looks at him curiously. 

"How did you kill him?" he asks. 

"I smothered him with his own pillow as he thrashed and struggled under my hands. He isn't as strong as he looks. Shall I start calling you my King from now on?"

The smirk on Goro's face is murderous. It softens, as his grip on Akira loosens. He sighs, and looks...relieved. 

"Yes, that will do. Let me pick out your outfit for my coronation."

"Yes, my King."

Goro adorns him in something that feels entirely inappropriate. His outfit is a direct match for Goro's. He has Goro's old crown placed carefully on his head, jewels around his neck. People stare and whisper when he passes by them holding Goro's hand. 

His other hand rests on his sword, ever vigilant to make sure Goro is safe anyway. 

Goro accepts his father's crown and addresses the people to let them know things will change. And then he walks with Akira to the nearest forge and takes his father's crown off. 

"Melt it down," he commands. "And reshape it however you'd like. Whatever you believe will suit me. You may choose the jewels that will be on it, and I will provide them. You will be paid handsomely."

The forgemaster nods, already getting to work when Goro leaves to go back to the palace. He sits heavily on his father's old throne and crosses his legs. 

"Sit," he tells Akira. 

"Where?"

He grins, a flash of his tongue swiping across teeth. He gestures to the Queen's abandoned throne. 

Akira sits, and Goro leans his head back and laughs.

From then on, Goro adores him. He drags Akira with him everywhere, spoils him with things Akira didn't think were meant for spoiling. He earns bits of Goro the more time he stands by his side. 

Goro does change things. He changes them for the better, improving the housing in the slums and increasing food production while also increasing the wages for labor. He hires more help in the palace and pays them better, makes more trade deals with other kingdoms. He increases the size and quality of their army, but advocates for peace nonetheless. The people are more educated than ever, their nation is thriving, and everyone loves King Goro. 

Akira loves King Goro. But then again, Akira always loves Goro. 

One night, as Akira stands his post outside Goro's room, he hears a call for him. And when he steps inside, Goro is clothed only in moonlight, body entirely relaxed as he grins at Akira like he's caught something particularly tasty. 

"You want me."

"I do, my King."

"Then you may have me."

Akira's permanent spot becomes the Queen's old throne. Now  _ his  _ throne. 

Goro gives him a ring to wear around his neck, to match the one he wears on his finger. Goro doesn't call it marriage, but when Akira calls him his husband he doesn't refute it. 

The people seem to take to it just fine, and they love the King Akira who teaches sword fighting classes and hand to hand. The one who sits with the children in the square and teaches them to read, who opens up the library in the palace to the public. More often than not he can be found sitting in the library surrounded by a gaggle of children reading them a story as they drink and eat courtesy of the palace’s kitchen. He handles all the offers to wed Princess Futaba and gives them to her so she can deny each and every one of them. He teaches her some choice words for the creepy admirers, and she giggles every time she comes up with a particularly good insult. 

Goro seems so happy, and one day he finally says so. 

"I'm sure you can tell by now, but...I love you, Akira. I'm so happy you won that fight."

That fight, now five years in their past. 

"I've been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you," Akira responds, as always. 

"You are something else," Goro tells him. 

"I know. So are you."

Akira's post becomes the space next to Goro in his bed. Their bed.

They do things more out of order than Akira could have ever imagined. It makes him smile to think about how Goro is the one who is making things messy. The God of Order, what a sight. 

Every day they're happy feels like a ticking time bomb though. Every day Akira doesn't win, he feels more dread build up in him. They can't be happy forever, Goro's game is still going on. There's still something Akira needs to save his husband from even if he has no idea what. 

Akira starts to personally train individuals in their army. He refines and sharpens each of his pupils until they're as deadly as he can get them. He chooses the ones he recognizes. 

He gives Haru an axe and watches her uncertainty fade to blood lust. He trains Makoto, one of Goro's many helpers back home(though she's his favorite), personally in hand to hand until she's learned all she can from him and he passes her off to Goro for another pass through the wringer. Yusuke is one of Goro's first husbands, a God of Inspiration, Art, stuff like that. He's still close to Goro, and Akira only gets jealous when Yusuke only wants to spend time with Goro. He is rather gorgeous, and Goro is too lucky to be his favorite muse. Here, he's a soldier who can't hold a broadsword but thrives when Akira gives him something lighter, thinner, and longer. Ann, a goddess of beauty, does well when he gives her a bow. He has fun with Ryuji, another god of chaos like him, and ends up letting him learn lots of different things until he becomes a versatile monster. 

Akira prepares for a war he's fairly sure is coming.

But this time there's no war. 

All of Akira's careful planning and preparation goes to waste the second he wakes up at the hint of noise. Goro hasn't moved, so he grabs the dagger from under the pillows and sits up to watch the dark. He carefully and quietly moves so he's mostly body blocking Goro, and doesn't dare speak. 

He knows this is it, deep down in his gut he can tell this is the final thing Akira has to save them from. He doesn't even need to wake Goro, just needs to let the intruder come to him and kill them. 

The dark moves, and Akira pounces. He can tell it's woken Goro up, from the way he murmurs and shifts, but all he's focused on is the body underneath him. He finds their hands to wrench the blade away from them. 

"What do you want?" he hisses at them. "Why are you trying to kill Goro?"

"Goro?" The voice underneath him is deep and Akira doesn't recognize it. "I don't want to kill King Goro at all. I'm here for you, you assassin."

"How did that go, huh?"

The sun is rising quickly now, and the first bits of light spill into their room. Akira doesn't recognize the man's face, but he does recognize the smile on it. He's missing something. 

"Actually, it went very well. Perfectly, if I do say so myself. Go back to sleep, your Majesty, you don't want to see this." Another voice comes from the dark. 

Akira starts to turn, starts to search the rest of the room. But before his head whips to the side even a little, he gets to see the sword come through his stomach. He raises his hands up with the dagger and stabs the man under him until he stops laughing. 

The sword is pulled from his body with a wet sound, and he finally sees the woman he missed. 

Sae is looking at him sadly, blood on her sword. 

"I'm sorry, Akira. I couldn't let you get away with murdering the King. Please don't be too angry with me."

Sae directs the last part at Goro, who's sitting up in their bed with an empty expression on his face. 

"Fuck," Akira spits. 

He's going to become Goro's destruction at this rate. He devoted himself to Goro and forgot to stop the devotion in return. He puts pressure on his wound and drags himself close to the bed. He drops the dagger somewhere on the way, and doesn't even look when Sae escapes out the window. 

He takes Goro's hand from his spot on the floor, kissing it reverently. 

"Please, my King, you have a kingdom to care for. There is more to life than me."

It would've been fine. This would've been just fine if Goro didn't fall in love with him. He could've won here if he could help himself, but Goro always makes him do stupid things. 

"There isn't," Goro insists. 

The tears on his face glow with the light of the rising sun, and he is ethereal even like this. Akira smiles at him, raising his hand further up to hold his face. 

"There is. Please, it'll be okay. Trust me, it'll all be okay."

"It won't."

"I've been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you," Akira whispers. "And I will lay eyes on you again. I will not stop loving you. This isn't the end. There is no reason for this to be our end."

Goro drops from the bed to the floor. He takes Akira's abandoned dagger, and Akira doesn't have the strength left to stop him. He claws at Goro's hands uselessly as he plunges the dagger into his own chest with a gasp.

Akira lays with him until the sun has fully risen. Their blood mixes together on the floor, and they just hold onto one another as they die quietly. A devotion to follow them each to the end. 

Akira decides devotion is the worst thing to come of human relationships. 

Goro's eyes close first, although he keeps breathing. At least he'll pass without pain.

Akira closes his eyes, and when he opens them it's to Goro's bright and alive face. 

"That one was close," Goro comments gently. 

"It was."

Goro holds his arms out, and Akira gratefully allows his husband to hold him. The warmth very quickly soothes the storm Akira had felt. Somehow, that one had felt so real. 

"Are you done playing?" Goro asks. "I promise I won't make fun of you if you concede now."

"I'm not done," Akira insists. "I know I can do it. I saved you once and I can do it again."

Goro smiles at him. He tugs at Akira's horns to kiss him, and Akira accepts the white that invades his vision with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The proud heart feels not terror nor turns to run and it is his own courage that kills him."  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	4. Wolves/Fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Explicit  
> This chapter contains graphic depictions of violence, body mutilation(? briefly), sexual content, several murders, weapons, mentions of addiction(cigarettes), and I think that's it? Unsafe driving? It's an assassins au so.

Akira opens his eyes to music and dim lights and a glass of something in his hand. The condensation from it wets and cools his hand, making him loathe to hold onto it. Still, he stays frozen in place, waiting for his mind to catch back up with him. 

"Bring that to table three."

He lets his feet carry him to somewhere he somehow knows, finding a dark table in the corner where a man sits working on a laptop. His hair is tied back, but when he looks up after Akira sets the drink down it's unmistakably Goro. 

It’s faster than Akira has ever found him, and his mind is still playing catch up to align itself with the new reality. He has to blink a few times before he can settle rightly into place. 

"Thank you," Goro says. 

"Of course. What are you working on?"

And Goro looks so annoyed with him that Akira can't help but grin. Goro seems offended by the very idea that Akira hasn't already left him alone. 

"Work," he responds shortly. "You can go."

Goro is easily beautiful even though it’s clear he isn’t trying. There are bags under his eyes, and he’s nestled here in the dark typing frantically on his computer while he drinks something that’s probably ninety percent alcohol. And his hair is tied back, falling in messy strands in his face and he’s shutting down any attempts Akira makes to try and start a conversation with him. 

Still beautiful, still his husband. 

"You see I would go, except you are absolutely gorgeous and I feel like it would be a shame if I just walked away from someone like you."

Goro slams the laptop shut, knocks back his drink. 

"When are you out of work?" he asks. 

"Now if you want me to be."

"Smooth. Let's go, then. I'll wait out front."

Still his husband. 

Akira tells his boss he's leaving, and just laughs when he starts getting yelled at. 

Still, the man seems overly fond of him, and just tells him to come in early tomorrow. After some confirmation that he will, he gets let off. He doesn’t know that he actually will, but the empty promise sits heavily in his chest. 

Humans like to do that, don’t they? Lie. It’s really rather fun, isn’t it? 

He meets Goro outside, watching him smoke a cigarette into the frigid air. His laptop is in a case that he holds at his side, and when he looks at Akira he seems rather tense. He’s half glaring, even though he was the one who offered this whole exchange. 

"You smoke?" Goro asks him. 

Akira feels his pockets. 

"Yes," he answers. 

Apparently. He thinks that's a cigarette box in his pocket. Little cancer sticks for humans to get addicted to. Something that wasn’t even enjoyable that would eventually hurt them, decay their bodies until the end of their feeble little lives. He never saw the appeal. Now, though, he does see it a little. 

Goro is an image and a half leaning against a brick wall with one of them between his lips. When he blows the smoke out, his lips part and...

Akira wants him very badly. He always wants Goro, but there’s something about this iteration of him that feels like something he wants to hold in his hands until the edges soften. He wants to smooth over every edge, erode at every bit of rust until he comes away sweeter and cleaner. Even if it destroys him in the process, it would be a worthy cause. 

“Smoke a bit with me,” Goro insists. “Maybe it’ll serve to calm our nerves, just a bit.”

“I’m not nervous.” 

“Of course.” 

He holds the cigarette firm between his teeth and reaches into his pocket to pull out a lighter. 

Akira takes the cigarette box from his pocket and pulls out one to stick between his own teeth. 

Goro lights it for him, then shoves his lighter back into his pocket. 

Akira blows his smoke in Goro’s face, and gets a glare in return. 

He just snickers, leaning beside his husband who isn’t his husband yet here and quietly smoking a death stick with him. They must be quite the sight. 

Maybe he has to make Goro quit these things. Oh what a challenge it would be. When humans get addicted to something it’s near impossible to pull them away from it, even if they want to stop. They know it’s bad, they know they should stop, sometimes they don’t even like what it is anymore. But their bodies betray them, crave it, need it physically until they cave and go back to what’s easier. It’s even worse if they don’t, and Goro doesn’t seem bothered by what they’re doing at all. Either he’s already tried to quit and gave up, or just doesn’t care what happens to him. 

Akira doesn’t think it would be impossible at all to make him stop anyway, but it wouldn’t be easy either. Maybe that’s a proper challenge to end their game. 

“What’s your name?” Goro asks him.

“Akira.”

“Goro.”

Of course he knows that, but he just smiles. An exchange of pleasantries over and over, a little dance back and forth. Goro can’t recognize it, but he does. 

“Pretty name,” he comments.

“I’m sure you’ll have fun screaming it, yes,” Goro says easily. 

Akira grins at him, and Goro stares blankly back. Oh he’s going to have so much fun with this Goro. He’s going to smooth out that blankness, he’s going to bring everything that burns bright out of Goro until he’s a whole new kind of stunning. He doesn’t care what it takes, he’ll do anything for Goro. 

“Did you drive here?” he asks him.

“Yes. I figured we could take my car back to my place. I don’t want to go to yours, just in case. You could be a serial killer.”

“So could you!” Akira laughs, crushing the cigarette against the wall behind him. “But whatever. You’re hot. Besides murder is pretty intimate don’t you think? Stealing someone’s last breath, holding their life in your hands...I think I wouldn’t mind if someone like you murdered me.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Sure am. Still wanna sleep with me?”

“Fuck. Absolutely.”

So Akira gets into Goro’s extremely nice car and kicks his feet up on the dash. He slumps down as much as possible and rolls the window down even though it’s cold. He feels like his entire body is buzzing underneath his skin, aching to be let out. 

Goro looks him up and down, then rolls down his window and cranks the heat. 

He drives too fast. But not fast enough to get caught, not too fast around certain corners, like he knows where he would get caught. His eyes watch the road carefully, speeding up and slowing down at seemingly random times. He drives fast and recklessly, but still smart. 

But then they hit this stretch of open road and Goro bears down on the gas. Akira cackles as they race down the road, almost fast enough for his liking. Still not quite there, still not quite enough that he’d fear for his life. Not enough to feel all of his godly life struggling to fit in this mortal body. But much faster than he ever could’ve imagined Goro would allow himself, than a human would be capable of with the confidence Goro is currently exuding. At least Akira can feel humanly alive in this moment. 

“I’d give you head right now if I thought you’d let me!” he cheers, sticking his head out the window to feel the sting of the wind. 

And Goro laughs with him now, slowing as they get back to a more populated street. He pulls into an apartment complex’s parking lot. He gets out of the car quickly and leaves Akira scrambling to follow him.

Everything about Goro right now is fast and hurried. Desperate. It’s a good look on him. 

He follows Goro into the elevator, into his apartment, and finally into his bedroom. Goro kisses him, laying him out on the bed below him. He lets Goro take his shirt off and kiss him until his head spins. He rolls his hips up against Goro’s and gets only a smirk in response. 

Akira’s heart hasn’t stopped racing since Goro’s car started purring beneath him and he felt the wind make a mess of his hair. Now it races for an entirely new reason, the adrenaline refusing to abide as Goro’s lips find a home kissing up his neck. It’s all so perfect, so much more than Akira could hope with the two of them here. And it still feels familiar, it still feels like them. 

Akira still feels at home with their bodies pressed so close. 

“Don’t move,” Goro commands. 

Hepulls back to open the drawer beside his bed, and then he moves really really fast. 

Akira’s reflexes are just barely sharp enough to grab Goro’s wrist and hold the knife away from where it’s poised to slit his throat. He struggles for a moment with it, shaking as Goro pushes and pushes to break free past the grip and follow through with the motion. But he steadies, and Goro’s force lessens somewhat. 

“Holy shit! You’re actually a serial killer!” Akira laughs and rocks their hips together again. “How rude, you didn’t even want to fuck me first? I’m a bit hurt, I thought we really had something.”

“Shut up,” Goro growls at him. “I know you work for Shido! You’re Yamamoto Akira!”

“Mm nope. Kurusu Akira,” Akira corrects. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I already know—“

“And you’re Akechi Goro, and if I had to guess, Shido is your asshole father. You want to take him down. What, are you doing hits on his associates? What are you doing that for?”

Goro looks entirely taken back.

“How—“

“I know you, Goro. I always have.”

“What are you a stalker?”

Akira grins, using the confusion to grab the knife from Goro and flip them. He holds the knife to Goro’s throat and lays on top of him. 

“Hey honey!” Akira laughs, wondering if Goro would be angry if he slit his throat now.

That might save him, if he’s already a hitman with a cigarette addiction. But at the same time, Akira knows that’s cheap. He knows there’s a way other than death, because Goro would never come up with something so dark. 

There’s a way out of this for them, Akira just needs to make Goro stay. This is it, this is his moment when he has the upper hand still. 

“What do you want?” Goro grits out.

What does he want? How does he convince this Goro right now not to kill him? Anything, he just needs to say anything to buy himself some time. A lie, a good lie. One based in truth, like all good lies are. 

“I want to help. I’m a pretty good hitman myself.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“I know.”

“If you already know so much there’s no point saying no,” Goro sighs. “If I can’t kill you, you could just sell me out. I don’t have much of a choice.”

Akira moves the knife to let Goro sit up. 

Goro looks a bit crazed, clearly high on adrenaline.

“Still wanna fuck?” Akira asks.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Goro shakes his head. 

“Well I didn’t tell you my name until after we got outside and you agreed to fuck so. I figure there was interest before you decided to kill me.”

“Yeah but I just tried to kill you.”

“Do I feel soft to you?”

Goro rolls his eyes, taking his knife back and trying to stab Akira again. Akira easily stops him again. 

He takes the knife and throws it into a corner of the room this time. Clearly, Goro can’t be trusted. 

“You’re actually crazy,” Goro tells him.

“Like that wasn’t obvious already. Can I suck your dick?”

“I’m going to give you my number and you’re going to leave.”

“Your loss!”

Goro sighs and hands over his number, which Akira quickly saves into his phone. He’ll have to get stocked on knives. Those are easier to conceal, but a few guns wouldn’t hurt either. If he’s going to go along with this, the least he can do is be helpful. No use doing something like this halfway. 

He flirts with Goro some more until he gets kicked out, then goes to find some shady business deals to make.

He texts Goro to let him know who it is, then leaves him alone.

Eventually he gets the text. It’s just a meeting place and a time. As an afterthought, he tells Akira to dress formally. 

So Akira only brings one knife to strap to his thigh and keeps a gun in his waistband.

“I can’t believe you actually showed,” Goro mutters.

“Can we fuck this time?”

“Please take this seriously. There’s a man at this event named Ito Kenji. He’s a major funder for Shido, so we’re taking him out tonight.”

Goro looks so hot, though. He’s wearing a well fitted off white suit. The shirt underneath is white with thin black stripes, and he has a black bowtie and gloves. 

He pulls them up as Akira steps closer to adjust the collar for him. He brushes lint from Goro’s shoulders, tugs the sleeves so they sit better, adjusts the jacket until it fits right. He only stops fussing when Goro literally hits his hands away. 

“Is that necessary?”

“Just want you to look your best,” Akira dismisses. 

Akira picked something he knew his husband would like in any form. He couldn’t resist any opportunity to tease him. The black suit, the gray vest, the black tie and gloves. Sleek, professional, and Goro tugs him in by his tie to crash their lips together.

“Sure we can’t fuck tonight?” Akira asks into his mouth.

“Maybe if you impress me.”

Good enough for Akira. 

Goro slips fake glasses onto Akira’s face, and slicks back his hair as best as he can. He makes no effort to disguise himself. 

So Akira takes Goro by the elbow and they walk into the party together. Goro easily gives the host fake names and they’re let in without another word. An easy lie taken at face, just because Goro was so confident in the way he said it. Goro doesn’t have much of a tone change between telling the truth and lying, so Akira can’t blame anyone for falling for it. 

Goro starts to mingle quickly, taking glasses of champagne for both of them as he chats up people who look rather important. He works the room with all the professionalism and arrogance of everyone else here, blending right in with them like a wolf among sheep. 

They mostly ignore Akira, even if they look his way hungrily when nobody is looking. Next time he’ll have to show up as something they’re allowed to hit on. He’s sure he can find a decent wig. 

He sips his champagne and looks for the face Goro showed him. 

A woman walks up to him who looks a lot like Futaba if she were trying to look not like herself.

“Excuse me,” she says.

She brushes past him, and he grabs her wrist as her fingers close around his phone.

“Excuse  _ me _ .” He raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“I knew that wouldn’t work.” She pouts. “But Goro said you’d be too distracted to notice.”

Akira smirks. Well that’s a different story. If she’s on such a casual basis with him, if he trusts her and not him yet...

“Goro wants to look at it?”

“Yes, he wants me to do all sorts of research on you. Don’t tell him I said that, though. He begged me to be sneaky about it.”

Akira glances at Goro, talking to a man who’s a bit too close. Akira hands Futaba his phone wordlessly and walks over.

“Babe,” Akira whines. “I’m hungry and this party sucks.”

“Babe?” 

Goro glares at him.

“Can you be patient for once in your life?” Goro sighs, rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to do about any of that?”

Akira can see now that the man in front of them is their target. 

“Won’t you make things more interesting?” Akira asks, leaning into him. “Please?”

Goro shrugs him off and walks away. 

Akira watches him go with a grin, then wipes it off his face into disappointment when he turns to face Ito Kenji. Acting like this is so fun, especially when he gets to do it with Goro. He wishes he could’ve played it out longer. 

“You poor thing,” Ito says. “This party is rather dull, you’re right.”

Oh, that makes this easy. Goro really left him to get his hands dirty to test him, surely. Good, Akira will make this easy for him too. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Akira tells him. “If you follow me, wait a couple minutes. I’ll be in there for a while.”

And he walks into the bathroom at the facility, delighting that they’re single ones. He leaves it unlocked and slips his knife from his thigh into his sleeve. And he leans against the wall to wait. 

Ito comes in a few minutes later, and Akira locks the door behind him.

“Why don’t you get on your knees if you’re such an eager whore?” 

He sounds rather excited, it would be such a shame to disappoint him. 

“Alright, but you have to bite down on something. I can’t have my date hearing you.”

Ito takes one of his gloves off and bites down on it. 

Akira takes his cock out, rather unimpressive. He takes it in his mouth in one go, grazes his teeth at the base, and bites it clean off. 

Ito’s scream is muffled in the glove shoved in his mouth.

Akira spits it out in his hand, standing to slit Ito’s throat before he can call for help. He hits the floor with a thud, and Akira steps back to avoid the blood. There’s some on his gloves and jacket, but that’s what the black is for. Not even noticeable if he gives it a minute or so. 

The severed dick goes in Akira’s pocket to avoid leaving his DNA behind, and it’s hardly bleeding anymore so it’s probably fine. He just has to hurry. 

Akira washes his face free of blood and rinses his knife off before he puts it away. He takes a deep breath in to make sure he doesn’t smell too much like blood. It’s fine, although he should keep his mouth shut in case it’s in his breath. 

He steps around the body and pool of blood to open the door slowly. Nobody is around, so he locks the door behind him before he closes it. He tests the handle to make sure it’s locked properly before he steps back into the party. 

He catches Goro’s eye, from where he’s talking to Futaba. He passes them, holding his hand out until Futaba drops his phone back into it. Goro is too busy staring at him to notice the swap.

And he casually walks right out the side door, one that leads outside. A few people are smoking, so he lights one up himself and waits for Goro.

The smoke helps get the taste of blood out of his mouth. It should take care of the breath too, and rushing off won’t do him any good. He doesn’t think anybody saw him go into that bathroom, but if they did it’s good to have a solid alibi here, right now. 

Goro follows soon enough, lighting a cigarette and walking off. Akira waits a handful of minutes before he puts out his own to follow him. 

When they get into Goro’s car, Akira snickers.

“What?”

Akira takes the severed dick out of his pocket and drops it into Goro’s lap.

“What the fuck?” Goro throws his hands up and gags. 

“I bit his dick off! There. You can have it. As a keepsake.”

“I don’t want it! These pants are going to stain now.”

“I’ll buy you a new suit,” Akira promises. 

“That’s not the problem. You’re fucking batshit insane, Akira.”

“I swear we already established that. Can we fuck? I really don’t want that guy’s dick to be the last one I had in my mouth.” 

Goro throws the dick back at him and Akira laughs, holding it up to observe it. It’s sort of shriveled up now, pretty ugly. But it was a funny moment, so it would seem like a waste not to do  _ something  _ with it. 

“I think I can preserve it. A trophy!”

“You have to burn it. It’s evidence you idiot.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll get rid of it,” Akira says, squinting at it. “Even smaller now that it’s out of blood.”

“I have an acid at home that burns human body parts,” Goro mutters. “Let’s go.”

“Oh no way, what kind?” 

“Hydrochloric. It was a gift, of sorts. Anyway, I have enough to get rid of...that. So we’ll go to my apartment with it, please stop throwing it at me.”

“No way, we’re going back to your place? Did I impress you?”

“You...did something alright.”

They spend the night destroying evidence. Akira jokes about dipping his fingers into the acid and thinks Goro considers throwing him in, head first. 

They watch the news and listen to the police waves until the body is found, hours after they’re gone and the evidence is disposed of.

Goro ends up fucking him against the wall next to the TV as they listen to the news report about their hit. 

Finally.

Akira tries to convince Goro to leave the country the next morning and gets kicked out. 

But Goro still texts him for help for the next hit. Despite everything, they come together for a second time. 

Suzuki Kai is their next one. Akira does find a wig and dresses as slutty as he can manage. 

It draws Kai, the pervert, in so quickly Goro looks genuinely surprised. 

They kill him together, Akira not wanting to get himself dirty this time. Goro is more than happy to show off to him anyway. 

They destroy the evidence at Goro’s place and wait. 

When it comes through on the news, Goro fucks him against the wall again. 

It’s thrilling. Listening to the speculations, the police reports, the supposed suspects they have that don’t match their descriptions at all. It feels much like pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, and grinning at each other all the while. 

They settle into something that could almost be called routine. They do a hit, they destroy evidence, they fuck when the news comes in, and the next morning Akira tries to convince Goro to run away with him and is rejected each time. But they start smoking cigarettes together in the mornings with their coffee and debriefing too. 

It’s kind of addicting. Not in a way that Akira physically needs, exactly. But he wants, he gets used to it, he craves it anyway. It feels like that itch under his skin, where he begs to be let out and given full freedom with his husband. It’s not enough, no matter how much Goro gives him. But it’s still impossible to give up. 

Akira even starts associating news about murder with getting fucked. It’s kind of funny.

Taking out Shido at that point isn’t difficult. When Goro wants to, Akira just agrees. They dress in their Sunday best and Goro screws Akira over the desk covered in blood while his body bleeds on the floor. They’ll probably get caught for this one, but what does it matter? That was their goal. They’re done now. 

As always, they go back to Goro’s place. Akira makes them both some drinks and they sit down on the couch like they always do and switch on the news in the background. 

“I think we should leave,” Goro says. 

He takes a long drink of the way too sweet cocktail Akira gave him and swings his legs up onto the coffee table. 

Something about him feels softer this way, as the tension falls from his shoulders and he turns to look at Akira with these big, fond eyes. There’s something a little sad in them, but there’s always something a little sad in them. 

His edges have blurred over, and when Akira reaches to take his hand he lets it happen. 

“Really?”

Goro snorts, rocking back in place and dropping his head over the back of the couch. He swirls his drink in its glass, bouncing his foot. There’s something about him that seems more lively lately, and especially since they got rid of Shido he’s seemed just...happy, maybe. No, more like relieved.

He squeezes Akira’s hand, pulling their hands to rest together over his thigh. 

“You’re the one who always suggests it,” Goro murmurs. “I think I’m finally ready to.”

On the news, they start talking about the death. Goro slips his eyes closed and finishes off his drink. He sets it with a heavy clink on the table and stands up, dragging Akira up with him. 

“Come on. We’ll pack tonight and leave tomorrow.”

Akira brings their joined knuckles to his lips with a smile, certain that the moment they board that plane the game will end. That night they pack, they make love, they pack some more, and they wash each other off before collapsing to fall asleep in the same bed pressed impossibly close. Akira didn’t know he could be so intertwined like this, not while he was human. 

His heart feels full, and as fun as the lies and the thrills were, as alive as that made him feel...this is the first time his heart feels heavy because of love. 

The next morning, Goro smiles at him. This genuine expression that looks like it’s going to split his face in half, eyes fond and soft and every bit of Akira sings in relief. 

Goro presses their foreheads together. 

“I love you,” he says. 

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you,” Akira answers without pause. 

Goro kisses him, sweet and gentle and full of so much. Full of life. Full of promise. Full of the love he’s used to getting from his husband. 

“You’re so sweet,” Goro laughs, softly. 

“You’re the sweet one, my dearest.” 

“Are you ready to go?” 

Akira nods, biting back a grin that threatens to overtake his face. This is it, they’re really going home. He’s too overjoyed at winning, too excited to board the plane and see Goro’s face for real soon that he doesn’t see it. 

“I’m sorry,” Goro murmurs. 

And then Goro takes out a gun and puts a bullet through his head.

Akira opens his eyes in shock. He doesn’t get up immediately, looking up at Goro like he’ll explain the betrayal.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Goro says, and drags him up. “Good sex, at least.”

“That’s true...I thought I was doing well too.”

Goro shrugs. 

Akira frowns at him.

“That’s not fair. I did it well. I did what you wanted me to do. I played it perfectly, things went so well. You wouldn’t give me an impossible game, so...so what did I do? How did I lose? We were happy, we were going to leave! It was over!”

“I don’t know. I think you went about it wrong.”

“That’s not fair!” 

Goro shakes his head. His eyes close, then flutter back open. An exasperated and tired sound hisses out from his mouth. 

“Akira, I’m going to do you a favor,” Goro murmurs. “You need to learn something about fair. So I’ll have to show you, do you understand?”

“I don’t understand! I played your game! Tell me what went wrong! When did things go so wrong?!” 

“Akira. Are you done playing?” 

“Of course not--”

Akira’s vision whites out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	5. Chains/Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Mature  
> This chapter contains illegal activities? They're a pirate crew so stealing, kidnapping, murder. There are some depictions of violence, but nothing too graphic. As always, death.

Akira opens his eyes to the swaying indicative of being on a moving vessel. Probably a water one, based on the pattern of the rocking. 

He sits up in his bed, feeling around until he finds makeshift curtains to push aside and let light in. Doing so reveals a sea laid just outside the small window, and the room he’s in. It’s cozy, and there’s a desk sitting in the middle of it that has papers spread all over it. 

“Oi, Captain!” 

Akira goes to answer the pounding at his door as his mind starts to catch up. Ship, pirate ship to be exact. Obviously he’s the Captain, and as he flips through what he knows of his crew he can’t find Goro anywhere there. 

He swings the door open to see his Quartermaster, Ryuji. 

“Good morning. Can I help you?” 

“Get your ass out here!” 

Akira grumbles a little, tugging on the coat by the door and sliding his boots on before he rushes to follow Ryuji out onto the main deck. Their ship is decently sized, but the crew is kept small. They keep business quiet. 

“Where is everyone?” he asks. 

He only sees a few sailing masters running around keeping the ship moving in the right direction. 

“Mess deck,” Ryuji explains. “It’s eatin time, Capn.”

“ _ Captain _ ,” Akira corrects. 

“Capn.”

There are a good amount of faces Akira recognizes when they join everyone to eat. Eggs and biscuits, with grog that Akira would rather die than drink. He finds rum to open and take with his food instead as he listens to the conversations around him without really participating. They’re telling grand stories, talking about what they’re going to do for the day, or in general poking fun at one another while they eat around a few big tables. 

He sees Ann, looking far from the Master Gunner his memory says she is, helping cook and dish out food with Haru. They’re standing so close they keep bumping elbows, but it doesn’t seem to annoy either of them. 

He saw Yusuke portside with the sailing masters. Calling for things to be done, moving around the ropes like it was all his hands ever knew. 

Ryuji is sitting at his side as a Quartermaster, talking with his mouth full and telling stories that must be grossly exaggerated. 

No Goro. 

Akira eats his food slowly as he thinks over that. He’s in the middle of the ocean, and Goro hasn’t kept them apart for long yet. If Goro isn’t on this ship, then surely…

“Ryuji.”

“Hm?” 

Ryuji looks at him with a mouthful of food, swallowing it hard and then choking on it. Akira slams his fist on his back until Ryuji hacks up the food he got stuck in his throat. He knocks back whatever is in his glass and clears his throat with a thumbs up. 

Akira rolls his eyes. 

“I wanted to ask how our progress is going.”

“Oh mornin report!” Ryuji nods. “Took ya long enough to ask, normally you’re the one knockin down my door to ask me for it. Awful quiet today.”

“Today, Ryuji.”

“Yeah yeah. Well we should be running into that Navy ship sometime today or tomorrow depending on how fast they move, so says Yusuke. That Admiral--”

“He’s a Rear Admiral,” Akira murmurs without thinking. 

“Uh, yeah him. Supposedly he’s deadly shot with a pistol, and his First Mate’s nasty with her sword so we oughta be careful.”

“We’re always careful,” Akira dismisses, standing. “I’ll be in my cabin looking over plans. Door will be open, holler if there’s trouble.”

He retires to his cabin to flip through the papers there, read through a journal he didn’t write a single word in and pore over the maps laid out all over the desk. 

True to his word, he leaves his door wide open as he does it, and eventually Haru walks up and knocks on the side of it as she hovers in the doorway. 

“It’s open,” he teases. 

“Well...yes.”

She steps just a little inside and hesitates further, stalling in place as she looks anywhere but him. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

“I haven’t been a prisoner in a long time!” she blurts. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you. But...I want to be part of the crew. I swear I won’t bring you down, Ryuji has been teaching me how to handle a sword, and Ann took me down to the cannons...oh and Yusuke showed me the ropes. I can be useful with some work, I know it!” 

She’s gesturing wildly now as she talks, passion igniting in her eyes. 

A captured member of royalty, a whole Princess they kidnapped to hold for a ransom that never came in. She’s proved herself over and over to be only grateful that they took her, and has slowly moved up the ranks until…

“Haru. You’re already part of the crew,” he tells her. 

“What?”

“You don’t need to be more useful than you are. Your cooking is a hell of a lot better than the rest of us. If you want to learn more, be my guest, but as far as I’m concerned you already pull your weight.”

She absolutely beams at him, walking up to his desk to take his hand and shake enthusiastically. He pats the back of her hand fondly and jerks his head. 

“Go tell everyone the good news.”

“How did you--”

“Only my crew would teach a kidnapped Princess how to be a crewmate. I’m sure they’re all either outside listening or pretending they aren’t.”

“Captain, I’m not doin nothing!” Ryuji insists, poking his head around the corner. 

He hears similar grumbles, and just throws his head back and laughs. 

His crew, huh…

They don’t run into any ships, and Yusuke comes to talk to him about stopping in a port instead to sell some loot and restock their ship. Akira just  _ knows  _ Goro was on that ship, but he also knows that Goro won’t keep them entirely apart and there’s really nothing he can do about it right now. 

He takes it to a vote, and everyone seems more than happy about stopping for a break in a port town. 

They’ll spend three days and two nights there, and try to gather intel and see if they can’t still track down that ship. 

Day one, Akira steps off his ship with one last pat to the railing as he steps down to the docks. He’s the last off, and for a while everyone just stands there stretching and groaning about being on ground that doesn’t move. Haru sways and nearly falls right into the water, but Akira is quick enough to catch it and grab her. She rights herself with a grateful smile and moves forward like a fawn taking its first uneven steps on new legs. 

“Let’s go drinking!” Ryuji cheers, first to speak. 

“The sun rose not that long ago,” Yusuke says. 

“Let’s go drinking!” Ann echoes, slinging an arm around Ryuji. 

They march away singing loudly and badly, followed by no one. 

Akira shakes his head, hanging back to see where everyone decides to go. A group breaks off to the markets, some linger in the docks, and two girls finally take pity on Haru and drag her off towards the boutiques. 

Akira unties the bandana from his head, running hands through his curls to get them to hopefully not turn into too much of a mess. He slips glasses onto his face, his vision immediately sharpening, almost imperceptibly. He doesn’t really need to wear them, but it works well to make him less noticeable as he moves down the streets. He thinks he’s sort of infamous enough that people might know his face, although this town is tucked away enough that he doesn’t think they’re in too much danger. Letting his hair out and wearing glasses should be enough to hide him. 

He left his coat back on the ship, which he realizes a bit too late, halfway to the tavern Ryuji and Ann made a break for. 

It's not too cold, and the coat would probably be a bit too much of a giveaway to his identity anyway. Still, he feels...off without it. It doesn’t feel quite right to walk around without the weight around his shoulders. 

"Hey, Ren!" Ryuji calls him out as he walks inside. 

He bristles for just a moment before the memories come to him. That's right, as an extra caution he uses a fake name in public with his crew. He was wanted even before he was a pirate, so even his name is enough to set off alarms for people. 

Akira slips into the seat on the other side of Ryuji, watching as he knocks back his drink and orders two more. Assuming that one of those is for him as well, Akira leans back and tips his head around to study the inside of the tavern. 

It looks well cared for, not the nicest, but certainly they make enough money to get by. It’s comfortable, and Akira sees the bottles hung around. Likely carried in by the tide and picked up by those walking along the shore, brought here. Immortalized in time, glittering and shining multicolored light around the place. 

"Oi, Ren. Drink up!" 

Akira leans forward again and takes the mug to sip at as he continues taking everything in. There are carvings in the bar, initials and words and dates. 

“May I?” Akira asks, taking his own dagger out. 

The barkeep looks at him curiously for a moment, but she nods. 

The date etches itself before Akira has a chance to think about it. The carving is unsteady, a jagged cut of  _ 1.10.09 _ . He thinks of looking up at a ship half in ruins with Ryuji by his side and thinking that this is where his life starts. 

It isn’t truly his memory, but it still feels so real.

"Hey...you get Navy in this town?" Akira asks, slipping his gaze back to the barkeep. 

She's polishing mugs, but she looks at him when he speaks. She hums for a second, looking around before she leans forward. Elbows up on the counter between them she sets the mug she was cleaning down with a thud. 

He figured, with the casual atmosphere she probably didn’t care much for the uppity type. 

"Yeah, sometimes. Townsfolk don't much like it though, lemme tell you that. Stuck up, the lot of 'em." 

"Oh, it's the same for us. They like to think they own all the seas," Akira snorts. 

"Real bastards." She shakes her head. "I gotta warn ya, they might come around sometime soon. There's a lone ship in the area, I've seen it with my own eyes prowling about. It oughta make a stop any day now." 

Akira rolls his eyes, lifting his mug to the empty air and giving an easy smirk to the woman.

"Well here's to hoping they pass us right on by."

"We can only hope!" she laughs, nodding jerkily.

"I'll drink to that!" Ryuji butts in, chugging the contents of his own mug. 

"You have an inn?" Akira asks quietly. 

"Yeah, next door. Pretty quiet, we got plenty of space. You need a place?" 

"Yeah, not many of us. Small crew, about twenty give or take." 

"Down on your luck lately?" she asks, voice dropping low. 

Even if there's no one in the tavern other than them, it's clear what she's asking. It's clear she knows, but Akira chalks it up to barkeeps knowing their crowd easily. 

"No, not at all," he dismisses. "We're just...rather quiet about things. Better to keep the crew small with our type." 

"I see. Well, we have plenty of room for you, especially if you bunk up." 

"Doubles are welcome," he agrees. 

"I'll head over and tell my husband. Rooms will be ready by the time night rolls around."

"Thank you, miss." He tips his head to her. "I really appreciate it." 

She laughs, refilling his mug before he bothers to ask. 

"Oh I like you, mister captain. Don't be a stranger, ask for Ohya whenever you stop around. Not that I got much help around anyway!"

Akira is about to ask how she knew he was the Captain when her eyes flick up. 

"Momo, dear, do you need something?" she asks sweetly. 

A little girl runs through the tavern, easily dodging around the tables and chairs and clambering onto the stool next to Akira's. 

She slams her hands onto the counter. 

"The Navy ship just docked!" she announces loudly. 

"Speak of the devil," Ohya sighs. "Alright, run along home and don't worry about it. They never stay for long." 

Ryuji curses under his breath next to him and drops pay on the counter before going to slip out of his stool. 

"Take Ann and go check into the inn. Tell everyone else if you run into them, and lay low. I'll be staying here," Akira commands. 

Ryuji nods, and leaves with Ann in tow. 

"I believe we spoke too soon on that one," Akira says, now to Ohya. 

"Yeah. You'll be fine, Navy is never too bright when it comes to people. They got fancy educations and try to lord it over all of us, when they can't read a room half as well as they can a book."

They sit in comfortable silence, although the atmosphere remains tense. 

Akira is waiting, because he knows. He knows the next time that door opens it's more than likely going to be Goro. There's no way Goro doesn't come here, for the same reasons he did. 

Information. 

Loose lips sink ships, and the people in taverns at this time of day are more than inclined to let things slip. Akira's suddenly glad there's no one else around at the moment, and that he knows where Ohya's alignment lies, truly. He doesn't doubt she has another angle to play when someone else is in front of her, but her careful warning speaks to her true feelings. 

He was worried she knew he was the Captain because she recognized him, but Ryuji is far from subtle to be fair. Maybe she’s just good at reading people. 

The door swings open carefully, but Akira doesn't bother turning his head to look. He drinks more of the ale from his mug and taps his hand against the counter. 

"Like I was saying, trade's been nonexistent lately. Feel like you run into pirates every day now, we had no choice but to take a stop here," he says casually. 

Ohya's eyes sharpen, and she nods. 

Behind him, Akira hears the tapping of boots walk across the wooden floors. Two sets of feet, from what he can hear. They stop, in what must be the middle of the room. 

"Make yourself at home I'll be right with ya!" she calls, then turns back to him. "Yeah, don't worry about it. Things'll calm down before you know it." 

A stool scrapes harshly against the floor as it's pulled out, and Akira turns his head to make eye contact with Goro. 

"No, that seat  _ isn't  _ taken," he says, sipping from his mug. "Just sit wherever you'd like, why don't you?"

Goro hardly spares him a glance, quick to order something and turn to talk to the woman he walked in with. She looks remarkably like Makoto, although her hair is pulled tightly back in a neat bun and she’s dressed in a uniform. She must be the First Mate. 

Goro’s hair is a little longer than Akira is used to in these lives, and it’s pulled in a similarly neat bun, and his uniform has more to it than Makoto’s but it’s still much the same. 

“How rude,” Akira huffs. “I thought such high standing naval officers would have more manners than this.” 

Goro glances at him, out of the corner of his eye. Akira feels the way he’s examined, head to toe. He’s being watched carefully, sized up to see whether or not Goro needs to bother even looking his way. Judging if he’s had enough to drink to spill anything, if he has anything worth Goro’s time. 

“My apologies, the journey was a long one,” Goro says slowly. 

“Isn’t it always?” Akira jokes easily, tipping his mug towards him. 

“Well...yes. I suppose it is.” To Ohya as she puts down a drink for him, “Thank you ma’am.”

“Oh I see, politeness is reserved for people who get you drinks.” Akira drops a few coins on the counter. “Ohya, let me pay for them. At least a few drinks.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Goro insists.

Ohya picks up the money and Akira turns to grin at Goro. 

“Well too late, it’s already done.” 

Makoto starts talking to Ohya quietly, leaving Akira an opening to take Goro’s attention. Although more than likely, it’s Makoto giving Goro an opening to talk to him for information while she drains the barkeep of whatever she has. 

“My name is Akechi Goro. I’m a Rear Admiral. This is my First Mate, Niijima.” 

“Amamiya Ren. Merchant.” Akira reaches his hand out to shake Goro’s outstretched one. “It’s nice to meet you, Admiral.”

“ _ Rear _ Admiral,” Goro corrects tightly. “I know it’s a small thing, but…”

“Oh my bad,” Akira apologizes. “That’s right. All those rankings are so confusing.” 

“Are you also docked here?” Goro asks curiously. 

He’s turned completely towards Akira now, body twisted in his stool as he drinks and keeps his back to Makoto and Ohya. Akira knows better, knows his attention is spread throughout the tavern, that he’s being careful and watching. But he needs to come across as friendly, as open and casual. Similarly to Akira, he’d been able to read the laid back atmosphere. 

“I am, just for a couple days. We needed a break.” 

“I can relate to that.” Goro smiles, fake and too wide. “Are you staying on your ship or renting rooms?” 

“We’re staying at the inn next door,” Akira says, setting his mug down to lean in. “Why? Want to room with me?” 

Goro goes red, quickly turning away with a frantic shake of his head. He raises his hands with the motion and averts his eyes. 

So easy to embarrass. 

“No, I was only curious,” he says quickly. 

“I see. What about your First Mate there?” Akira prods, peering around at Makoto. “She’s a looker too.”

“I’m afraid neither of us are that type. Excuse me.”

Goro turns slightly away, and that’s the indicator. He’s been deemed unimportant, uninteresting, not worth the time. Which hurts to be seen as by his own husband, but is good considering it also means they’re unlikely to be bothered as long as they stay here. He’s passed as some flirty merchant who’s a little down on his luck. 

That’ll do, for now. 

Akira stands, and leaves to go meet the rest of his crew back at the inn. He raises his hand and announces his departure, with no reaction from Goro or Makoto to show that they’ve even heard him. 

The way the numbers work out at the inn, one of the double rooms only ends up needing to fit one person. They all insist he should take it, since he’s the Captain and all, and he’s used to his own room anyway. It also happens to be the only room on the second floor, leaving him separated from the rest of them on an otherwise empty floor. 

Halfway through the night he shoves a snoring Ryuji onto his side and slides into bed with him instead. For some reason, he finds sleep easier that way. So they go from eleven rooms to just an even ten. Ryuji doesn’t mind making room, and comments that it’s almost like old times. 

He’s known Ryuji since they were small, both sleeping on the streets, usually huddled together for warmth. It’s a somewhat uncomfortable and unwelcome memory that invades his head when Ryuji says it, but he nods along anyway. His body remembers, and settles accordingly. 

The second day he somehow gets roped into going to get Haru more clothes. She’s been mostly wearing what she had when they took her and borrowing from the other crewmates when that runs itself thin. They’d gone the previous day, but hadn’t found much then. Gin and Hiina are two girls brought onto their ship from a previous attack they’d done on a naval fleet. It’s been several years since then, but the status as kidnapped slowly morphing into crewmembers has left them slightly attached to Haru. Gin now works the cannons, and Hiina the sails. 

He insists he won’t be of help to them, but they drag him along regardless of whatever excuses he tries to make. 

They do find Haru some fitting clothes for the seas, things that suit her much better than the expensive and lavish stuff she wore before. It takes them all day, from the sunrise to the sunset they run around the town searching for just the right things, and stopping for food whenever Hiina deems it’s been too long since they last ate. Haru tries on hundreds of outfits, and they walk away with only three in the end. Still, Haru beams at him as she wears her favorite back to the inn.

“It feels like I’m actually...an actual crewmate now,” she tells him. 

“You always were,” he dismisses. 

“I know, but this feels. Official, I don’t know. Just let me thank you. You’re a really good Captain.” 

“Absolutely not.” 

She lightly hits his shoulder and says, “Take the compliment!” 

When Akira goes to sleep that night, he finds he’s restless until Ryuji starts to snore. Somehow, that awful sound lulls him to sleep. It’s familiar, and he can hardly help the way sleep just takes him over. 

The final day, Akira wakes up to Ryuji clinging to him in his sleep. Well, the first time he wakes up. He ends up falling back asleep, listening to his even breaths and feeling the warmth pressed to his side familiar but also not. Like someone he knows but not quite really. 

The next time he wakes up, Ryuji is gone and the room is empty. 

It’s at this moment that Akira remembers, oh. Right. Goro is still running around the town somewhere and that’s meant to be Akira’s objective here. He doesn’t know how smart confronting him would be, though. Still, just talking to him could help. Any amount of effort, whatever Akira can do...he can’t let Goro slip out of his hands this time. 

And then Yusuke bursts into the room. 

“Captain!” He grabs Akira and starts tugging at him. “You must come with me this instant. This is of dire importance.” 

Akira feels anxiety flare up in his chest. Something happened with the Navy, someone was hurt, something happened to the ship. His mind goes through all the options, and he doesn’t settle on one because Yusuke is already moving. 

Akira pulls on his boots and hurries after him with all the speed of the devil on his heels. 

Yusuke is ridiculously tall, and far too fast and slippery as he guides Akira through crowds and streets with what seems like laser focus. Akira only keeps up because even when he falls behind, Yusuke is easy to spot through the people. 

And then he takes a sudden turn into the space between two buildings, and Akira ducks in after him. 

“What is it?” he demands, slightly out of breath. 

Yusuke doesn’t answer him, seemingly just as frantic as he looks around before nodding to himself. 

Yusuke drags a crate from the back of the alley and knocks on the top of it. It looks nailed shut. From inside, Akira hears a faint meow. 

“I can’t get it open,” Yusuke says seriously. “They are trapped in there. I couldn’t just leave them! I figured you would know what to do, Captain.”

Akira digs in his pocket for his dagger and unsheaths it. He wedges it underneath the lid and uses the leverage and as much strength as he dares to wiggle the blade up and down until the nails get loose enough for the lid to open. He puts his dagger away and holds the crate open. 

Yusuke immediately crouches down and pulls three kittens out. He cradles each close to his chest, sighing in audible relief. 

“We must feed them. Poor darling things, should we look for milk or meat?” 

Yusuke looks at him, absolutely oblivious to the fact that he scared Akira half to death. He still looks so earnest and worried as three kittens wiggle around in his arms trying to get comfortable. 

Akira bursts into laughter. 

It’s a kind he can hardly control, because every time he thinks he’s composed himself he’ll look back at Yusuke and lose it all over again. By the end of his fit, his cheeks hurt and he feels out of breath. 

But Yusuke looks annoyed with him now. A soft sort of annoyed, like this is something he’s used to. As the pirate Captain of a crew that’s more like family...maybe they’re all just used to it. 

“I like cats,” he mutters. “I felt bad for them!” 

“We’ll bring them on board,” Akira relents. “They’ll be good to scare the mice, I guess.” 

“Yes! You’re the best Captain, Captain.” 

He shakes his head. 

“I’m not.” 

“You are!” Yusuke insists. 

He doesn’t grace that one with a response. It’s been a handful of days that he’s been aware, but based on the memories he has and what he has experienced...his crew is what makes him good, or whatever. 

He stops to say goodbye to Ohya before they leave, and she tells him they just missed the Navy leaving. He thanks her for all her help, and gathers his crew to make chase. They board in high spirits, and Yusuke waxes poetic about the thrill of the chase as he feeds the kittens tiny pieces of meat he cut up for them carefully. 

They run into the Navy ship that day, a little past midday. Yusuke spots it from the deck, and like a well oiled machine they all take their places. Akira keeps his sword at his hip as they approach the ship, sits back as they board it casually. There’s no fleet, just this one lone ship. It’s just Goro, it’s just Makoto. And the rest of their crew, although Akira doubts they’re nearly as dangerous as those two. 

There’s no attempt to evade, they aren’t even shot at as they simply...walk onto the other ship’s deck. 

“Captain,” Goro greets him. 

“Admiral.”

“Ren, right?  _ Rear  _ Admiral, although I’m sure you know that. Is there something I can help you with? I doubt you’re here as merchants. It wouldn’t be agreeable if we had to do this violently. I rather dislike getting my hands dirty.”

“Pirates,” Akira says as explanation, shrugging. “And that was a fake. You can call me Captain Akira.” 

“Well Captain Akira, what’s your point? We’re the Navy, I don’t see how that matters.”

“I really hate when we gotta beat em up to take their shit,” Ryuji complains loudly. “Like for real? Waste of ammo.” 

Akira can’t bite back his grin. It sours Goro’s face. 

“Oh believe me I would really despise wasting any amount of resources on a pack of vagabonds and scoundrels like you,” Goro snarls. “You should be grateful I’m willing to strike a deal, make a trade if you are willing. I’m doing you a favor, sparing you from me destroying you in any form of combat. There is no reason to resort to such antics.”

His crew is in uproar. He listens to their offended cries sound off behind him, and just raises a hand. Slowly, they quiet down. Ryuji goes quiet first, stepping forward to stand at his side. Then the rest of them follow, until the only sounds left are Goro’s own crew talking and the waves hitting against their ships. 

Akira wants Goro on their ship. Another captive turned crewmate, as most of his seem to be. He wants to show him the kittens they’d rescued, introduce him to Haru and Yusuke and make them all play nice. Ryuji will stay his Quartermaster, but Goro would probably do better at the canons. He’d probably like the repetitive work, even. 

He wants to...he wants to do this quietly. He doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. Maybe that’s too much to ask for. 

“I know our usual modus operandi would have us blindly running ahead, but wait,” he commands. 

“Yes, Captain.” 

Ryuji’s very posture relaxes, still poised to strike if the need arises, but no longer outwardly hostile. Like a ripple, the rest of his crew follows. 

“You have authority,” Goro tells him. 

“Of course. Don’t you?” 

“I’m above them. It’s only natural.” 

Akira knows that, as Captain, he leads in battle and that’s about it. In most other senses, he’s equal to the rest of his crew. No one is more important, no life is valued over another’s. He’s seen that in action, in sleeping in the same bed with Ryuji and letting the other’s boss him around and drag him place to place stubbornly. He’s the Captain because they believe in him as one, but that doesn’t mean much other than in title. Their faith is placed in him to lead, but it doesn’t make him any less or more than the rest of them. 

They are all equals. They are family. 

Goro has the nerve to insult his crew and then say such a thing to him. Akira feels something like anger flare up in his chest, hand flexing its grip on the hilt of his sword.

Akira wants Goro on his crew, but it’s obvious that he can’t be reasoned with. There’s no point. 

If he can’t be convinced, then they’ll have to take what they need and try to convince him after the fact. 

“You don’t have anything of value I can’t easily take myself,” Akira says. 

Like a goddamn vision from above, he sees it. The revelation that Goro isn’t as confident as he’s pretending to be, that’s why he’s attempting to bargain instead of run or fight. He’s bluffing. He’s bluffing, and Akira can take him. 

“You’re a sane man, aren’t you? Some gentleman of the seas, I hear. You seemed a bit flirty at the tavern, but calm and collected.” Goro steps an inch closer. “Surely, there’s some deal we can work out.” 

“You’re scared.” 

“I…” Averting his eyes. “I’m not  _ scared.  _ Certainly not of some worthless pirates like you.” 

“We’re going. Least amount of casualties possible! Nobody touches the Admiral!” Akira commands. 

They move. 

Akira trusts his crew to take care of everything else as he draws his sword and swings at Goro. 

He already knows how to fight Goro, he knows this prissy naval officer isn’t going to fight him any way but proper. He knows he can win, and he knows he can sweep Goro away from this and he knows there’s absolutely nothing that will stop him from accomplishing that short of death. 

Goro blocks the swing, with hardly a moment to spare. Akira needs to stay close, he can’t let Goro breathe and draw his pistol. It would only end badly for him. 

So he stays close, he lets things flow. A dodge, a counterattack, rolling away for a breath, parrying and throwing himself against the deck just to avoid that deadly sharp sword. He pulls for hair, spits and kicks, he fights with everything he has to gain the upper hand. Slowly, but surely, he seems to be winning. 

So it’s fine. His crew is winning. He’s winning the fight against Goro, and he hasn’t even had to maim him yet. Their difference is making itself known although no blood has been drawn. 

And then Goro rolls far enough away that he draws his pistol. Just like that, the entire atmosphere around him changes. He breathes out, and in it Akira reads his deadly intent. Even his eyes change, sharp focus locking into his gaze. The gun is raising up, up, up. Goro will aim in a fraction of a moment and shoot, he won’t have mercy. Akira didn’t have time, he didn’t...he didn’t even spare the time to convince him to have mercy here. 

Akira lunges for him, shoving the pistol away before Goro has a chance to aim. Relief fills his chest, and he sighs audibly. 

“Goro--”

“Wrong move, Captain,” Goro murmurs, a smirk curling around his words. 

And he fires anyway. 

Across the deck, there’s a thump as a body hits it. 

Akira whips his head just in time to see Gin drop to put pressure on the wound in Ryuji’s stomach with clinical precision. Ryuji chokes up blood, groaning in clear pain although he isn’t struggling under Gin’s hands. But the fight isn’t over, and there’s already so much blood and Goro is a deadly shot. Ryuji is already fading, and Akira should’ve known that asking for nobody to be hurt was too much. But now he just wants everyone alive, so he has to...

“ _ Checkmate _ ,” Goro whispers in his ear. 

Before Akira can look back to him, cold metal is pressed to his temple. 

Akira opens his eyes, shock settling into his body. His mouth feels dry, and his chest is tight. His head hurts, the phantom pain he didn’t have time to feel lingering in the aftershocks of his abrupt death. 

_ “Why? _ ” Akira asks. 

Goro stands above him, and says nothing. He doesn’t help Akira up, even. 

“How was that more fair than before? What did I do wrong this time? I mean I know I could’ve done more, but...”

Goro looks to the side, then looks back. 

“I’m not done,” he says quietly. “There is more to fair than what you can possibly comprehend just with that. If you so wish, we can continue.” 

“Is this still a game, even? Or have you decided to toy with me?”

Goro’s expression softens. He only ever softens for Akira, and even then it’s rare anyway. 

Goro heaves him to his feet, claws brushing over his features for a long and quiet moment between them. 

“This is...something. I’m not toying with you, though,” Goro promises. “I meant it when I told you you can stop at any time.” 

“I don’t want to,” Akira admits. 

“I have something I can’t promise will be fair. It is, but it isn’t. If you want, we will leave it. You can mess with the clouds again and I will not breathe a word of disagreement to it.” 

“No, I...I want to do it. I’m ready to do it.”

“Alright. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry what I did there.” 

Before Akira can respond, his vision whites out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	6. Unjust/Just

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Teen  
> This chapter contains non explicit death.

Akira is a child when he opens his eyes. 

He sits up in his bed, rubbing his eyes and walking down the stairs and right out of the house. He isn’t too young, although he tries to be quiet anyway since he doesn’t think whoever is taking care of him would like him to be leaving when it’s pitch black out. Something about how humans like to be sleeping at a certain time. Such creatures of habit. 

But it turns out to be worth it, because the second he steps outside he sees a figure crouched on the grass.

“Hello?” he calls. 

Goro’s eyes find his in the light from the streetlamp above him, and he raises his hand to show off a worm wriggling between his fingers. There is no mistrust in him, only a childish innocence to trust everyone he comes across. 

Not yet proved wrong. A kind of Goro still untouched by any sort of darkness. 

“Hi! Do you want to catch bugs with me?”

In his smile, Akira counts two missing teeth. He walks over and sits with Goro, looking down at the disturbed dirt. There are barely moving shapes beneath it, and Goro drops the worm into a container before digging back into it. There’s grime under Goro’s nails, and he’s covered in half wet mud and grass stains.

“Yeah,” he agrees. 

“Sweet, the roly poly ones are too fast for me, and I don like touchin spiders so you can do those!” 

Goro lives next door.

The next morning Akira gets a stern talking to about being out late and getting dirty, but he’s not really punished. They just walk him over to Goro’s house the next day to talk to his parents and let them play. 

Goro hides behind his mother’s leg, peeking out with those bright eyes at Akira. It takes a firm hand from his mother pushing him out to the open for Goro to bow and apologize for dragging him into his antics. Akira thanks him, instead. 

And Goro smiles at him, something that’s almost too big for his face even. Akira grins right back. 

They play a lot from then on. House, tag, hide and seek, all these human games Akira finds actually fun when it’s with Goro. They get overly competitive about most games, and Akira has definitely driven Goro to tears more than a few times. But it doesn’t change the fact that they still sneak out to catch bugs, and Goro slowly gets better about his dislike for spiders when Akira gets a pet tarantula and puts it on Goro until he stops screaming over it. 

They grow up using flashlights in blanket forts, making up stories and playing pretend. Goro’s creativity and adoration of telling stories reminds Akira of the game they’re playing, this beautiful world Goro has made for them. Akira always compliments him on the stories, and it never fails to make Goro blush and dismiss it. 

Goro gets more and more beautiful every time Akira sees him, and he always tells him as much. He can’t bear the thought of Goro not knowing just how amazing he is, just how much Akira adores him. Their parents coo over it, and Goro’s always tell him what good manners he has, how sweet he is, so polite. But Akira doesn’t do it for them, he does it for the twinkle in Goro’s eyes, in the hopelessly bitten back smile and red cheeks. For the stuttering, stumbling mess of Goro’s compliment in return. He’d tell him anything for such a reaction. 

Akira picks him flowers sometimes to braid into his hair, and Goro always has something new he learned to talk about. Sometimes they sit outside in the grass in clothes that will only get stained, or walk down to the creek together, and they just talk. Akira will braid or just brush through his hair, sometimes do homework. Goro will throw things into the creek or draw things in the dirt or sometimes read. And they talk. 

Akira never knew humans could possibly have so much to talk about, but they never seem to run out of topics. Sometimes they talk about things they’ve already talked about, but some other aspect of it, an extra thing they need to add. Akira never feels bored during their conversations. 

They go to the same school, inseparable. They constantly get in trouble for talking in class, though usually it’s because Akira talks to Goro and Goro eventually snaps and tells him to be quiet which gets them both noticed. Goro always gets so mad, the way his cheeks puff up and he yells until he’s red in the face but never does Akira feel like Goro is actually upset with him. Just that he has a temper on him and Akira is a stone wall that never falters even when Goro lets it out. He can take Goro at his worst, he adores Goro even at his lowest of lows. Nothing would ever change that. 

They find some friends that come and go, but at the end of the day they push each other on the swings and down the slides and when Goro falls and scrapes his knee, Akira brings him to the nurse and kisses over the bandaid she puts on him. No matter what, they are the two who come together time and time again. Walking home, sitting together at lunch, having their sleepovers, the way Akira always feels alone when Goro isn’t with him no matter who else he might be with. 

As they grow up, they learn how to sneak into one another’s houses. Akira moves bedrooms so their windows are next to each other. Even in the dead of night, his window stays open so Goro can always call for him. Sometimes Goro doesn’t even call, just crawls in. Some mornings Akira wakes up with Goro’s bedhead pressed in under his nose when he’d fallen asleep alone, and he just holds Goro closer and goes back to sleep. His parents never seem angry when Goro walks down the stairs in the morning for breakfast without warning, just put on more food and call Goro’s parents to tell them their son hasn’t been kidnapped. It feels...familiar. Domestic, that’s probably the word. That human concept of home, of having a family. Akira has never really understood it, but he thinks that’s what this is. 

Goro gets heavily into debate and student council and his studies. Akira gets into sports and working out and staying fit. He gets strong, and still keeps up with his studies so he can stay equal with Goro when he wants to debate. They shove each other into greatness, competitiveness never falling away to leave room for fondness with the two of them. Both exist. 

Goro helps him practice sometimes, when he has time, and he never fails to come to his games when Akira asks. Akira makes him go over his topics and notes over and over until Goro starts debating in his sleep. He slept talk at the best of times, and now Akira finds joy in murmuring a topic to him and listening to him start to chatter about it nonsensically. 

Their first day of high school is exhausting. The place is much bigger than their other schools, and Akira feels like he doesn’t stop walking or talking all day, his two least favorite activities. At least soccer practice goes well and he can just shut off his brain and move. 

Goro waits for him after school, even though debate hasn’t started yet. He hands Akira a coffee and a sandwich and they sit quietly on the grass in the middle of the parking lot of the school to eat and drink. 

Their shoulders press together, and the afternoon sun shines directly on the two of them. Akira watches the golden light warm Goro’s face and make the lighter strands of his hair absolutely shine. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Akira sighs. 

“You say that all the time.” 

“It’s true. More and more true every time I blink and lay eyes on you again.” Akira reaches out with a smile to caress Goro’s face. 

Goro leans into the touch, looking right into his eyes with something a little too intense. 

“Are we dating?” he asks. 

Akira laughs for a while, laughs harder when Goro slaps his hand away and starts huffing. 

“You can just say no!” he yells, punching his shoulder. “Don’t be an ass about it.” 

It doesn’t hurt very much, but Akira falls over dramatically into the grass as he keeps laughing at the sky. The clouds float lazily across the blue expanse above him, bathed in the sun’s light. It doesn’t compare to Goro, to Goro leaning over him with a frown. 

“You’re the worst.” 

Akira shrugs. 

“What? We probably are, it’s funny. Sue me.” 

“Maybe I will!” Goro scowls. 

Then he pauses, glancing back at him with wide eyes. He tilts his head. 

“Want to grab dinner tonight, babe?” Akira offers. 

“Ugh, don’t call me babe!” 

“Is that a no?”

“Well I didn’t...I didn’t say that.”

Everyone tells them what a cute couple they are, childhood best friends turned high school sweethearts. 

It’s an easy transition to make, because it’s not like Akira didn’t already love Goro. It’s not like he doesn’t already know how to love him, he can just be more obvious about it. 

Their parents hardly change, although they get more exasperated about the whole sneaking in for sleepovers thing. It doesn’t mean they stop, though. 

Akira would never let something so arbitrary stop him. He steals every moment he can to be with Goro, to share the same air and forget about the inevitable passage of time because how could he care when Goro is alive and warm and breathing with him? 

Goro tells him he loves him several times, but...there’s this one night it’s just different. 

“What the hell is love, even?” Akira mutters to the dark. “I mean I get it. But I also don’t. Humans are so complicated.”

“Mm, true that. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that. There are definitions, quotes, stories...but there’s always just something missing from any recount. Love is ever evolving, shifting and changing meaning from moment to moment for different people. Any sentence that starts with ‘love is’ is usually something that should be started with ‘love is  _ usually’ _ .” Goro presses into his chest and sighs heavily. “Love doesn’t have a right answer. It doesn’t have an answer at all, not even a definite definition. Love just sort of is, and we all go along with it.” 

“That’s a shitty answer.” 

Goro laughs, a quiet little snicker that fills the silence as they breathe together. They both know Akira is right, but it’s not like Akira has a better explanation either. 

“Get up, you big oaf,” Goro commands. 

And they get up, untangling their limbs and pulling away to be a little colder the next moment. Goro wedges the window open and sits on the sill, swinging his feet out and gesturing to the sky. 

“Look.” 

Akira walks over to look. The sky is bright, a full moon sitting heavy in the sky surrounded by stars. It’s nothing to the view from higher up, from seeing the stars up close when he travels to them, touching them, seeing a million different galaxies and the vision that is his husband’s true form. 

It is nice, though. 

“I love this view,” Goro says, eyes sparkling in reflection of the light he’s taking in. “I love the moon sitting up there in the sky, and each of the stars that come together to make up that view. It’s all so far away, but sitting here with you I still get to marvel at it. I hold deep adoration for it, I like it. I like it so strongly I call it love, but that is nothing like how I love other things. You love things like that, don’t you?”

“I love you,” Akira tells him. 

“I know, you idiot. But you don’t love me like I love the moon. At least I sure hope not. If the moon were a person, I would not love Her the way I love you. She could bathe herself in all the starlight in the universe and I wouldn’t see Her the way I see you. It’s just not the same, you know?” 

Akira almost tells Goro that the God of the Moon is a man they call Yuuki, and actually he bathes himself in the light of the  _ sun _ . But Goro’s eyes are bright and excited, and waiting for an answer. 

Akira pushes past Goro to sit halfway out the window with him. It’s uncomfortable, but Goro looks at him with all the fondness he seems to have pooled up and overflowing in his body. Goro interlaces their fingers with a gentle touch, reverently brushing their fingertips and wrists until their palms lay flat against one another and their fingers are locked together. 

“I love...coffee,” Akira offers. 

“Yes! You love each component of coffee, and it’s as much of a part of your life as I am. You drink at least one cup a day, you must love coffee, right? You love to make it, to drink it and watch others drink something you’ve crafted with your own two hands. Your life wouldn’t be the same without it, and you love the way your life is with coffee in it. But that’s not like some other ways you love other things, not like you love much else.”

Akira looks up at the sky and nods slowly. 

“If coffee were a person, I wouldn’t love it the way I love you,” he agrees. 

“Exactly, now you’re getting it.” 

Goro playfully nudges him with his shoulder, and Akira lets his head rest against the side of the window frame. 

The night sky is really beautiful, if Goro loves this vision so deeply. 

“I feel like when you love something, I look at it differently,” Akira admits. “I want to see it like you do. I want to feel the way you love.”

“You can.” Goro’s hand finds his cheek and turns his head. “Look at me, Akira. We have a lifetime spread before us. We can do this millions of times, talk about everything in the world there is to talk about until we both change each other just a little. You will see things like me someday, and I will see things like you. We will change together, until we are the same but just shifted to the side. Turned upside down, or reflected. The way change comes, over time and with care. We will feel each other’s loves for the rest of our lives if I have anything to say about it.”

Akira sees life in Goro’s eyes. The life they’re living here, together. 

“Tell me about your love more?” he asks softly. 

“Of course, my dear heart.” Goro leans forward and gently brushes their lips together. “I love my parents. I love my parents for taking care of me, I love them like I love my family. The family that gave birth to me, you know? That raised me and shaped me.”    
Akira nods, and Goro squeezes his hand. He squeezes back. 

“You’re my family too,” Goro murmurs. “You are a family I’ve made, carved into my own heart with my own two hands. It’s just not the same. It’s not anything alike, the ways I love. Every single thing, every person I love, I love each differently. In their own, unique way. It is useless to compare any of them.” 

“It’s the same for me,” Akira whispers. 

“Love is...holding hands and talking about it,” Goro whispers right back. “This is love, what we’re doing right now. You are love, and I am love. The moon is love, and everything in between is. Being human is to love, to make a family, to love further and more. Spread love, and all that. Because as far as I’m concerned, love is everything. And I love you, my everything.” 

This time it’s different. This is one where Akira can respond, “I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“So have I,” Goro says to him. “When I saw your hands dig into the dirt next to mine, I loved you. That love has grown up with us.” 

Goro smiles at him, and they go back inside to lay back down and settle to sleep. 

Goro gets smarter. He becomes student council president and leads the debate club. Akira becomes the captain of the soccer team his third year. 

Out of school, Goro goes to university intending on becoming a lawyer, of course. He works hard at it, his passion shining through as Akira sits on a video call with him as they do their own things, for the sake of seeing each other’s faces. Goro gives his all to everything he does, and that more than includes studying the thing he loves. 

Akira starts as a rookie on a low level soccer team on a contract with a pay that makes his head spin. And he...he loves it, he really does. He likes the feeling of being on a team, of putting so much work into something to have it culminate in games. Having people cheer him on, feeling like he’s important to something. 

Goro graduates with honors and becomes an attorney quickly. 

Akira plays soccer until Goro finishes university, and then they’re ready to settle.

Through the years they keep loving each other fiercely and making a life for themselves, the life they want to live. They work far too hard, but still they make an effort to have at least one day with each other a week. They still go on dates and love each other the same way they always have. The same way they always have, with a little extra every time. It changes with them, and only some of the time does Akira notice it. 

If Akira didn’t know any better, he’d think he’s more in love with Goro every single day. Sometimes it really feels like the already completely full spot in his chest filled by Goro expands every time they look at each other. That somehow his capacity for loving his husband not yet husband grows. A liquid that has no real shape, constantly changing to fit the form of its container. 

But that’s just silly. 

Akira retires from soccer with a small fortune and works part time at a bakery to keep himself busy. Goro bursts into the legal field, and moves into the house Akira buys for them.

Simple and cozy, with plenty of land. 

They get a cat so it doesn’t feel as lonely when one of them is home without the other.

The cat is an entirely black one who was probably a runt they named Chibi fondly. She is treated like an absolute princess, they spoil her rotten and she loves every second of it. 

Akira wakes up every morning, kisses Goro, feeds the cat, and then makes coffee with breakfast. It’s all very...domestic. A new kind of domestic that Akira didn’t know existed, this domestic bliss of a life where it feels like the world means nothing in comparison to the home he’s made with Goro. 

They get married quietly. Some paperwork, the smallest of ceremonies because neither of them wants to make much of a fuss about it, even though their parents and friends insist on them doing  _ something _ . They already messed up a lot, introducing each other as husbands when that wasn’t the legal case. A lot of people thought they were already. Akira is just happy to call his husband his husband again and mean it.

There’s a day, Akira is sitting by their hearth reading a book Goro got him for the holiday season. Goro has just gotten home, and Chibi is meowing incessantly at him, weaving between his legs trying to get his attention as he walks over to the chair Akira is occupying. 

Goro kisses his cheek fondly and drops paperwork in his lap. 

“What’s this?” he asks. 

Goro is already walking towards the stairs, loosening his tie and dropping his coat on the rack. 

“An adoption application!” he calls. “Fill it out, we’ve got parenting classes starting next Tuesday!”

After a couple of months they adopt a little girl, name her Hime, and spoil her. 

She gets everything she needs and lots of things she wants. Goro retires early so Akira follows him and they spend time taking on house projects and giving Hime the best childhood she could ever want. 

Akira wakes up every morning, kisses Goro, feeds the cat, and then makes coffee with breakfast. And now he pours juice for Hime and wakes her up for school most mornings. He’ll knock three times, then enter. Sit on the edge of her bed and gently comb through her hair until she stirs and blinks her eyes open tiredly. Sit there with her as she wakes up fully, then stand to open the curtains a sliver so he knows she won’t fall asleep. And then go start to make breakfast. 

When Hime brings over her friends he makes them snacks too, prepares much too heavily considering they’re all children who probably don’t care. Hime calls it embarrassing, too. 

Still, it’s...domestic. So domestic it makes Akira’s chest hurt. But he decides he loves it. He loves Goro, and he loves Hime, and he even loves their stupid little Chibi. 

Hime becomes an artist as she grows, and Akira proudly displays her childhood scribbles next to her recent masterpieces on their walls. 

Akira takes up baking and Goro distracts him from it often. Especially when Hime moves out with her boyfriend.

Their parents pass somewhere along the line, and they comfort one another and attend the funerals. All quiet, small, intimate affairs.

Hime gets married, and Akira cries at her wedding when he and Goro walk her down the aisle. And he cries harder when he dances with her. Somewhere along the line that became  _ his  _ baby, and he has to watch as the passage of time chugs along and she’s walking away before he even gets a chance to appreciate her being little, relying on him. 

The sand in his little hourglass spills, and he cries watching his daughter grow up. 

She has twins, two beautiful grandsons for him and Goro to continue spoiling.

They babysit them often, and Akira has long since stopped worrying about the game when the news comes in. 

He and Goro are sitting on the couch, pressed close to one another. Akira is half falling asleep and only sort of listening to the news on the TV. 

Goro has to tell him when he asks that in days there will be some nuclear meltdown and the world is going to end.

And it’s absolutely unfair.

They’re older now, so Akira guesses the life they got was nice while it lasted. It lasted long in comparison to what he’s gotten so far, few parts of it were painful or awful or made him feel like his heart was being ripped out. No, he just got decades full of a human life that he forgot was running out. Eventually, he grew numb to the sensation of the sand running between his fingers. He somehow lived and loved so very...normally. 

They had the most normal life Goro could imagine for them. Sweet and fond, having a daughter to take care of and grandchildren they got to see. Comfortable and in love. True to his word, Akira felt their love every single day, they changed one another in innumerable ways to come to where they are today. 

They were domestic, and now as it ends...Akira hates it. He wishes it had ended before he got so attached. It’s quickly souring to become one of his least favorite lives so far. 

They sit on their porch and hold hands, listening to the silence as everyone does much the same.

Their next door neighbors are a sweet couple with their two kids. They sit in the yard, playing with their kids and worriedly glancing up at the sky every once in a while. The clock ticks on, unknowing of the devastation that will come with the end. 

Chibi is a fossil by now, and Akira has no idea how she’s lived so long. It should be impossible, she’s over twenty years old now. Maybe it’s part of Goro’s reality, that their little kitten stayed with them to the end.

She’s purring loudly as she lays in Akira’s lap, and Goro lays his head on his shoulder, and Akira closes his eyes.

They don’t exchange words, because finally as many years as they’ve known each other and gotten to spend sharing the same space, the same life, the same inhales...they’ve run out of things to talk about. But what follows doesn’t feel empty, it doesn’t feel like a tragedy that there’s no conversation. It simply is. 

There is still love in their silence, and it’s comfortable, Akira feels safe even though the world is going to end and he knows it, but still he just...he just drifts off. 

When he opens his eyes and glances at Goro he’s got a faint smile on his face.

“ _ Hime _ . That’s a cute name,” he says softly. “What a sweet girl, I hadn’t even planned her...my flame would you ever want such a kin?” 

“I...That wasn’t fair,” Akira mutters.

He feels drained, still grasping at the memories of the life he left behind. That one was so much  _ more  _ than any other, and Akira remarkably finds himself missing it. 

The time he had in it was finite, and it would’ve ended with or without the end of the world. People who lived such lives die every day, and the world doesn’t pause for them. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be. I didn’t design it to be fair. But it was what you needed, right? What a human life, yes? Beautiful, and over so abruptly.”

“I couldn’t have won that one.”

“I didn’t expect you to. You weren’t supposed to. I’m sorry for that, truly.” Goro hauls him up and kisses him deeply. “Are you done playing?”

Akira holds his face in his hands and looks into his eyes. They’re bright, full of a life Akira feels he’s lost entirely after that. They are gentle, and caring. 

Goro has an agenda here. 

“I’m not. I’m playing until I win,” he says.

And Goro looks so pleased as Akira’s vision goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But listen to me first and swear an oath to use all your eloquence and strength to look after me and protect me.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	7. Inspiration/Dedication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Teen  
> This chapter contains death, and mentions of a car wreck.

Akira opens his eyes to a canvas spread wide in front of him. One of the ones that the humans labor over for hours only to make something just barely not quite true to life. They will never be able to capture the real thing, only photographs have ever gotten close. 

Akira has never been fond of art, to Yusuke’s displeasure. The only type he can really stand are the things that can be created through chaos. Paint thrown haphazardly, scribbles, things that Yusuke would call abstract and would get mad when Akira called ugly. Akira is comfortable in chaos. He doesn’t care so much for beauty or expression. The only exception he’s ever made is for Goro, and he doesn’t plan on that changing anytime soon. 

Akira’s foot is tucked under his leg, and prickles of pain and discomfort shoot through him as he straightens and stretches out. The canvas in front of him is already filled out in colors, just finished when he consults his memories. The picture is of a view Akira doesn’t bother to even search his memories for, because he can already tell it’s far from a perfect recreation and has not even a hint of chaos to it. It’s actually rather peaceful, and it’s an oil painting, and he absolutely hates it. Of all the mediums, only Goro would stick him with oils. The patience required for them, the hard labor, the painstaking and particular work. Of course it’s what Goro would choose for him. 

At least this one is already finished, and hopefully this life will be over before Akira has to so much as look at a canvas again. He knows that’s probably just wishful thinking, but he can hope. 

He leaves the painting to dry, stupid medium that it is will take an entire day before it’ll be ready to touch again. 

He has a little studio apartment that takes him all of a minute to get familiar with considering how tiny it is. A main room, a meager kitchen, a cramped bathroom, and his bedroom that’s messy with paint supplies and half finished to finished paintings. Managing his bank account only tells him he’s well off, a quick search of his name proves just how successful his infuriating oil paintings are with the general public. He’s cooped up in this tiny little apartment and yet he could live as lavishly as he pleased. 

His contacts are full of random names, charities, and galleries. There’s an unopened text from Nishimura(CommissionL-7), asking how the painting is going. Innately, Akira notes that it means his seventh commissioned landscape, the one he just finished. So he responds it’ll be done by tomorrow and goes through his contacts carefully looking for a name he knows he won’t find. 

He doesn’t find an Akechi Goro anywhere in his phone, but he does find an Akechi Chiyo. He scrolls through their texts, rifling through the memories he’s been given in tandem. At the same time he hits the spot in his memories he also finds the conversation. 

Oh perfect. He edits Akechi Chiyo’s name to Akechi(CommissionP-1). 

The next couple of days Akira settles into the new life, he makes sure he has enough oils, he texts on and off with Akechi Chiyo, Goro’s mother, about what she’s expecting of him. He gets an appropriate canvas set up, he makes sure there’s food and a clean space and that he can rely on some innate knowledge his body and mind have in this life Goro created for him. 

Three days after his arrival in this life, Akechi Goro walks through the door with his mother and nods politely to him. 

“Kurusu, this is my son, Goro. Goro, this is the artist I commissioned for your portrait. I just wanted to meet you, Kurusu.” Chiyo shakes his hand firmly. “But I’ll leave Goro in your care, he’s more than capable of communicating with you himself about when and how long the sessions will be. Simply foot me the bill at the end!” 

“Understood,” he agrees. “Thank you.”

She smiles and pulls Goro down to kiss his cheek. 

“Be good,” she tells him. “I love you!” 

“Love you too.”

She walks out and closes the door behind her. Akira leans around Goro to lock it as well, backing up and watching carefully for anything from him. He seems tired though, and he just follows when Akira walks into the studio section of his apartment. It’s really just the illusion of a living room in front of a window that only has a view of the brick of the building next to the apartment complex he lives in. 

“Hey Goro, just call me Akira, okay?” He gestures to the chair he has set up. “Just relax, I’m only doing some sketches today to get used to you. I’ve never--”

“You’ve never done a portrait,” Goro interrupts. “I know. Do whatever you need to.” 

He leans back easily in the chair and pulls out his phone to scroll through it. He doesn’t look back at Akira, and it seems like he’s settled for the foreseeable future. 

Akira isn’t quite sure what to say to him, especially now that his eyes seem focused on his screen and he’s typing incessantly. Every time he pauses he looks out the window, then back to continue the next moment. And through it, his eyes never turn back to Akira. He must consciously or subconsciously be avoiding him, so Akira lets it happen for now. 

Akira watches him still, observes this back and forth until the silence becomes too much for him and he lets muscle memory come to him to start drawing down the shape of Goro’s face on his paper. He doesn’t need to look at Goro to do it, but he does anyway. He watches the microexpressions pull at his face softly, watches him wipe his face clean in concentration so quickly Akira thinks he’s imagining the changes at first. 

On approximately the hundredth strand of Goro’s hair that Akira painstakingly draws across the page, he sighs and sets his pencil aside. Goro continues to type, entirely oblivious to the fact that he’s stopped. 

“Goro?” he presses quietly. 

Goro’s eyes--a bit too aware considering how far away he had seemed just a second ago--slide up to meet his. He doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head to the side in silent questioning. 

“Do you want anything? I need a break.”

“Already?” Goro glances down at his phone. “Hasn’t been all that long. Maybe my mom oversold you.”

Akira knows Goro a little too well to fall for the bait. He plays different characters in each of these lives he gives them, but still the amusement in his eyes gives it away. That certain twinkle, it tells Akira all he needs to know, that Goro is just playing with him. 

“Maybe,” Akira dismisses. 

Goro’s eyes sharpen. He looks to the side, then back. 

“I’ll have whatever you are,” he says.

Akira walks into his tiny kitchen area, pulls down glasses to get them both...he does consider water for a second. But then he remembers the expensive liquors just sitting unopened in a cabinet right now and he grabs them the best looking whiskey and pours them both some over ice. He brings the bottle tucked under his arm back to set on the table. 

“Alcohol? Am I that terrible of a subject already?”

Goro is peering up at him without even raising his head, smile bitten back behind tight lips. 

Akira doesn’t bother hiding his own smile. Sometimes Goro is too cute in these human forms. 

“Liquid courage,” Akira corrects. 

“Are you so nervous about a portrait? You’ve done them before, just never commissioned, correct?”

“I wouldn’t call it nervous, exactly.  _ Excited  _ is slightly more accurate.” Akira picks up his glass and sips it. “Oh this isn’t bad.”

“Excited?” Goro raises the glass to his lips and holds it there. “Mind elaborating?”

He knocks back the entire glass at once, honey-toned amber liquid slowly disappearing from the glass as he gulps it back. He sets the empty glass back on Akira’s far too expensive glass coffee table, with a loud clinking noise. 

“Refill?” Goro prompts. 

_ Oh _ . 

Akira’s finger twitches, and everything he is turns into everything he’s seen. The image burns itself into his mind and really all he wants to do is pick up the pencil--no, pick up the oils and just work until it’s done. It fills him up to the bursting. 

It is an all consuming feeling, a need to create until it’s made. He knows he should be responding to what Goro asked, and should be pouring him that refill he requested. But for a very long moment he can’t move. He doesn’t think he’s even breathing. He doesn’t know if he’s even alive, if maybe somewhere along the line there his heart just stopped. 

Is that what humans call inspiration? 

“Um, Kurusu? Or, Akira, rather.”

Akira has enough control to at least look at Goro. He has his eyes carefully schooled into something like concern, but he also looks like he’s gotten exactly what he wanted. 

“Sorry.”

Akira moves, he pours Goro that refill and has to step a little too close to do so. Goro doesn’t lean away, he leans in a little more. When he breathes, Akira can smell the whiskey in it. 

“How about that elaboration? I’m very curious.”

“Oh I’m just excited to be working with you, is all. I think you’ll be a fantastic subject.”

“Your new muse? I hear it’s quite an elusive position,” Goro murmurs. 

“I’m certainly considering it.”

Goro, all at once, pulls away. Akira didn’t know they were so close, but it hits him now just how much he was leaning in. It’s like Goro was pulling him just by talking, just by looking at him like that. 

His husband does have that effect. 

Goro curls up in the chair, much more comfortable. He nurses the filled glass of whiskey much slower now, and just watches lethargically as Akira scrambles to pick up the pencil and paper to sketch the image that remains burned into his memory. He doesn’t think it’s what Chiyo had in mind when she requested a portrait, but Akira doesn’t think he can even think about drawing anything else until whatever this is is out and expelled from him. 

Every time he looks up, needing to call up a mental image or just remind himself of what Goro looks like in this form, Goro is watching him. When their eyes lock, all Akira wants to do is go over to him and see exactly how close Goro will let him get. To taste the whiskey on his breath, breathe in the life that’s crawling out of every inch of him. 

The sketch is enough. For now, the sketch has to be enough. 

But when he moves to go on, to draw something appropriate as a portrait for his mother, Goro stands up. 

“I think I’ve had enough for this session,” Goro comments, all innocence. 

But his gentle smile is a little too sharp, and it tells Akira that Goro knows exactly what he did. 

“How soon can I see you again?”

Goro laughs, the first he’s heard out of this one. It’s all breathy, like he wasn’t quite expecting to. He raises a hand to cover his mouth, but doesn’t make it all the way. His eyes twinkle in a gentle mirth rather than the mischievous glint they had before. 

“Eager?” Goro teases. 

“Yes.”

“I’ll text you.”

“Wait. Why did you...why did your mother commission me?” 

Goro looks at him curiously. He smiles a little. 

“I suppose you’ll have to wait and see,” Goro says. 

Goro comes back two days later. They text often, the moments in between each of their schedules to talk about whatever is on their minds at any given moment. Akira gets used to the easy way a playful relationship slides into place. Sometimes Goro disappears for a long stretch of time and says he got distracted, but in general it always seems like he’s around. Always willing to talk. It makes Akira feel...silly. Happy. 

And then Goro walks in looking like he hasn’t got a minute of sleep since the last time Akira saw him. He’s nearly engulfed entirely in a hoodie that’s far too big on him. He has what must be a gallon worth of coffee that he pulls out of his pocket when he pushes past into Akira’s apartment to sit in his chair. Not that he’s sat in it more than once at this point, but somehow Akira has already designated it his. 

“Good morning,” Goro deadpans. 

“Afternoon sunshine.” 

“Let’s get this over with.”

Akira takes out his sketchbook, with the sketches he already did while Goro was gone. He’d used what he remembered, what pictures he has, and some artistic liberty to make some rough references to start the painting. He learned his lesson last time, not to count on Goro posing properly for him for even a second. 

And then Goro shifts just a little. The sun has hit that perfect spot in the sky where it actually comes right in through the window, and happens to drape itself all over Goro’s form. He has his legs pulled up onto the chair with himself now, hoodie too loose, falling slightly off his shoulder. There are bags under his eyes, and he sounds grumpy and tired and he’s completely disgruntled but Akira’s finger twitches again. 

He decides inspiration is the worst of mankind’s little quirks. 

“Akira what the hell are you staring at?”

“You.”

Goro’s expression calms a little, he takes a long sip of his coffee, and he smiles at Akira. 

“What a diligent artist,” Goro says. 

That’s one way to put it. 

“I don’t think it’s possible to actually work on the commission when you’re in front of me,” Akira admits. 

It isn’t. Goro proves himself over and over again an absolute inspiration machine. Akira feels like a man possessed when he moves just so, when he exposes another facet of himself, a new thing to show Akira that he wants to capture. He wants every part of Goro until he can reassemble him, bit by bit. 

It won’t be a perfect recreation, not by a long shot, but Akira desperately wants to make it anyway. 

“I thought you said I wasn’t a bad subject?”

“You aren’t. It’s the opposite, you’re way too good of a subject for me to want to paint you in even a somewhat appropriate way for your mother.” 

“Oh?”

Akira doesn’t know when he walked so close to Goro, but he can smell the coffee now and Goro’s grin is all teeth in front of him. 

It has to be something about him, Goro must have some power over him here. Some type of siren? Some trickster hellbent on messing with him? 

Akira has no idea what Goro is doing to him, but he’s being pulled into an inescapable orbit that he has no intention of trying to avoid. Still, he’s used to having much more control than this. 

“I don’t think your mother’s commission had this sort of thing in mind. I mean you won’t tell me what she did have in mind, but I doubt it was...what  _ I  _ have in mind.” Akira is taking in every piece of skin he can see. “Luckily you were memorable enough that I could sketch you after you left. I’m supposed to be starting the painting today. Oils are painfully time consuming.”

“I know,” Goro hums. 

He doesn’t say anything else, just keeps looking up at where Akira stands over him. He sips his coffee passively. 

“You’re doing that on purpose,” Akira accuses. 

“Doing what?”

Akira fights with himself and finally pulls away. He doesn’t get very far. 

Goro grabs his sleeve, yanks him back down. 

“Akira, don’t think you’ll be getting away with a comment like that so easily. I’d like an answer,” Goro says. 

It isn’t a command, it isn’t a plea, it’s not even a suggestion. He just...says it. 

“You’re...being beautiful on purpose, I don’t know,” Akira answers anyway. 

“You do realize just how idiotic that sounds, right? Not only am I currently running on two hours of sleep, just under a lethal dosage of caffeine, and half a bagel, but I also cannot exactly control my beauty at any given moment. Beauty is also subjective, beauty standards are different for different people, so--”

“Well. You met my beauty standards the first time I saw you and you do now. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Goro looks deathly pale, but for the first time all session his cheeks go a little pink. He averts his eyes. 

“Thank you. I should...probably go though. I have a lot of work to do. Coffee that won’t drink itself and such.” Goro laughs, but it sounds slightly forced. “But I’ll be back soon, not to worry.”

“You don’t have to.” 

Goro looks at him, a quiet storm brewing behind his eyes. He stands up, not even having sat long enough to leave much of an indent in his chair. He nods to Akira and walks out of his apartment without another word. 

Goro disappears for a week. Akira doesn’t hear anything from him, and neither does the world. Akira looks him up and everything, apparently a famous author which he didn’t hear a word of from Goro or his mother. Chiyo also claims he hasn’t contacted her at all either. 

And Thursday morning, at about three in the morning that is, Akira is jolted awake by his phone buzzing. 

He picks it up, blearily blinking his eyes open into alertness. 

“Mm?” he hums into it. 

“Oh Akira, good, you’re awake. I’ll probably be missing another week or so, there’s a lot to sort after a book gets released, so. Yeah. Not to worry, I’ll contact you when I have time again.”

The phone clicks and Akira sinks back into bed and falls back asleep. 

When he wakes up, the entire conversation actually hits him. 

He wakes up to a book sitting on his counter. He looks towards Goro’s chair, but it’s empty. 

There’s a note that falls out when he opens the book. 

_ Sorry for breaking in. I locked the door behind me, you’re welcome. Also you’re welcome for the signed copy of my book. Also you’re welcome for existing, while you’re thanking me. I’ll be over soon.  _

It doesn’t need to be signed by anything, the handwriting itself is enough. Not to mention absolutely nobody else would leave a note like this and of course...it’s Akechi Goro’s new book sitting on his counter. 

It only takes him the rest of the day to read it. 

Goro remembers without remembering. Or maybe he does remember, because the story is about a knight who dies for his charge. A fantasy world, where a young boy is saved and becomes a Knight to repay the one who saved him. And in the end, that Knight sacrifices himself. The story is about love and loss, about sacrifice and devotion. 

The two of them remind Akira of how they were that life, but they’re also not quite the same. 

And Akira can only think,  _ Oh _ . 

Oh, that’s why. Goro tells him in so many words. Instinct, a desire to protect, a sense of duty, the paralyzing fear of loss going against all self preservation, love and humanity all wrapped up in a bundle of self sacrifice. People say that dying is easier than living, and that’s not wrong. But it’s far from  _ easy _ . But there are things that make it easy, people who make it easy to die for. That’s what Goro tells him. 

Akira has never had to even think about truly dying in any capacity, he has never had to grasp at the sands of time and desperately wish for more while still letting it slip between his fingers. 

Willingly cutting the strings holding him up all for the sake of another, he’s never had to even consider if he would. 

Goro tells him what lives are worth, what love is worth. He tells him what it means to be a martyr, what sacrifice is. 

Akira couldn’t have understood it so many lives ago. 

But now he thinks he sees Goro. In between the lines and scanning each page he picks up the bits and pieces of him scattered everywhere. And at the end of it he takes out no small amount of canvases and he paints. 

He paints every single day until he physically can’t anymore. He doesn’t need to sleep that much, so he does the bare minimum his body can handle and drinks coffee until he feels sick. He only remembers to eat sometimes. 

When Goro asks to see him he asks for one day. The paintings need twenty four hours to dry, so he promises the next day. 

Goro shows up to his apartment the next day, not knocking or even announcing his arrival before he’s coming over to grab Akira. 

“You hated the book, didn’t you?” he accuses, shaking him. 

“What? I loved it!” Akira grabs Goro back and shakes his head. “I was painting, obviously.” 

“But you didn’t see me all month…”

“I did, though. You showed me yourself in that book,” Akira insists. 

He takes Goro’s hands and drags him further into the apartment, pushing him down into his chair. Goro sinks down in it immediately and Akira goes around to each of the canvases to pull the sheets off of them. 

Goro doesn’t say anything. But the gallery composed has nothing to do with realism or chaos. Akira isn’t looking for approval, isn’t expecting praise. 

The paintings he’s made are pure emotion, however that came out. Most have to do with Goro, but some of them are more broad in topic. His favorite is the one covered in coffee stains. It wasn’t supposed to be, but when Akira had dipped a paintbrush into his coffee mug rather than his paint one, he’d liked the look anyway. So he didn’t fix it. It didn’t need fixing. 

Goro doesn’t necessarily say anything. But his eyes give everything away, flicking between each of them with a different look for each. Awe, inspiration, happiness, a hint of anger, maybe a bit of a twinkle. And when he lands to look up at Akira, he’s trying to hide a smile with that special look in his eyes that Akira kept mistaking for so many things. But he knows now, that it’s just...familiarity, fondness. Goro recognizes him in some capacity, and he’s looking at him so softly now. He’s looking at him like he’s in love. 

Akira has known Goro now for about a month, but somehow when he finally gets close enough to touch, Goro lets him. 

Goro leaves early the next morning, after a cup of coffee, a whole bagel, and a kiss. 

Akira takes the commission piece from where he hid it in the closet, which is probably his real favorite because without any pretenses it’s just...it’s just Goro. And he loves Goro, and he loves this painting he made of him in a fit of restless inspiration. 

He tells Chiyo it’s finished and she says she and Goro will pick it up as soon as they get a chance. 

He thinks that whatever Goro needed to be saved from he might’ve just...he thinks he really got it. He thinks he might win, he thinks he can save Goro this time. And he’s a little sad their game might be over, but mostly he’s happy. He’s ready to go back, to tell Goro how wonderful it all was and only brag a little and love him openly and fiercely and the way they’ve always been. He’s ready to be done. 

It’s all over the news. Akira goes on an errand and when he gets back he switches on the TV and there it is. Akechi Chiyo was badly injured in a car wreck, saved only by her son dragging her out before the car exploded. However…

Akira goes to see Chiyo in the hospital when the life won’t end. It refuses to, as he sits in his apartment and waits. He doesn’t know what else to do to trigger the reset. 

She’s unconscious, but he visits every day until she starts to recover. She never seems to be awake when he’s there, but eventually she’s awake more often than not. But she just sort of stares out of the hospital room window and doesn’t seem to really see him. 

So he brings the finished commission to her. He watches her hold the painting in her hands like it’s the most precious thing she’s ever held, like she’s seeing Goro all over again as she looks at it. 

“I loved him,” Akira tells her quietly. “I’ve...I wanted to tell him I’ve been in love with him the moment I laid eyes on him. It feels wrong not to at least say so out loud. I’m sorry.”

For the first time since the accident(Akira has spent more time without than with Goro now), Chiyo looks at him. Her eyes break from numb into pained, and she starts to sob in earnest. She clutches the painting close to her chest, careful with it even as she breaks down entirely. 

“Thank you,” she cries out. 

So he goes back to his apartment, back to the graveyard of Goro. The sheets are back over the canvases, but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps. 

Chiyo asks him to come to the funeral. He doesn’t want to, and when he snaps at her about it she just gives him the date, time, and location and leaves it at that. 

Nothing is helping, and the life just won’t end. He doesn’t know what to do, he feels lost and without direction and he finds he’s...scared. 

He’s scared something went wrong, that somehow Goro messed up and he could actually be gone and what will Akira do if that happens? 

So he goes to the funeral. 

Chiyo says some words, and they’re using the portrait he painted, and Akira thinks real and genuine grief tears through him when they bury him. 

“Hi dear,” Chiyo says to him, after. 

She looks like him. It’s in the eyes, they have the same hair. Akira wonders where he got his personality. Did they snark at each other when Goro was young? Did she teach him to be so hardworking, so wonderful, so Goro? Akira had so many things to ask Goro still, so many moments to live with him. They were supposed to have more time, or at least the game was supposed to end so Akira could try again. 

“Why did you commission me?” Akira asks her. 

His voice is hoarse, he sounds wrecked and distraught and he can’t even care because he  _ is.  _

“I wanted to commission a portrait of him, because he was never going to be who he was then ever again. I didn’t mean it that he would die, just...I figured he’d change soon. I wanted to immortalize who he was then.” Chiyo tucks her arms to her body and stares at Goro’s grave. “He has always changed so rapidly. I feared one day I’d forget all of who he’s been. At least now I have this.” 

“Why  _ me?” _

Chiyo laughs softly. Sadly. She’s tearing up again. 

“He asked for  _ you _ ,” she chokes out. “He insisted on you. I’m sorry, I don’t know why.”

Akira’s own eyes fill with tears, but when he goes to blink them away, he opens his eyes and sees Goro. He reaches for him, and Goro reaches back. 

“Will you be alright?” Goro asks, a little too soft. 

A good amount of soft. 

Akira nods slowly, then finds the tears have followed him into this body as they spill over in mercury down his face. 

“Oh dear,” Goro sighs. 

“I’m alright. That was beautiful,” Akira praises. “I still want to save you. Please, I want to go again.”

“You have saved me, my flame.”

“I know. I just...I just think I have to do this, now. I want to win, and...yeah. I’ll be okay, really. I’m ready.”

Goro’s hands on his face move from the soothing motions to clear the tears away. With some well placed kisses, Akira doesn’t feel so much like garbage. He feels the grief that had torn him open slowly start to turn to stitch him back together. 

The tension falls away, and makes way for the fondness he holds for his husband. 

“You’re ready,” Goro agrees. 

And Akira’s vision goes white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	8. Hunger/Heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: Mature  
> This chapter contains in depth descriptions of illness and death. (It's also a vampire au so there's some sucking blood in there idk)

Akira opens his eyes to a thunderstorm. He watches lightning streak across the sky, and it’s no more than a few seconds before the thunder booms to follow it. The only light present is from candles that are lit every once in a while around the house, acting as small pockets of flame to illuminate the layout. 

Akira finds that even without much light, he can still see relatively well. 

He’s starting to catch up. This is his house, he lives in a relatively rural and older area where he’s not bothered often by people. The music he’s hearing comes from the main room. A record player is sitting on the table, a record spinning lazily against the needle. Softly, a waltz plays. 

And...he presses his tongue against a canine. Sharp, pointed. His skin is cold to the touch, and he’s living outdated like he’s still playing a century of catchup. 

A bloodsucker then, one of those pesky little leeches. Goro must know how much he despises them, so of course he’d stick Akira in the role of a vampire out of their time and place. 

At least he’s not human. He’s had his fill of humanity what with the last life. 

And then there’s a pounding at his door. 

He picks up a candle holder, sheltering the fragile frame as he goes to answer the door. It wouldn’t do if someone saw him moving so comfortably in the dark. The ambience doesn’t hurt, either. 

He peers out the window first, but hurries so much once he sees a flash of brown hair that the candle nearly snuffs out. He pulls the door open, smiling fondly at Goro standing there. He’s soaked to the bone, shivering violently. All he has is a bag pulled in front of him and a little under his coat to shelter it. No umbrella, and there’s not even a hood on the coat he’s wearing. 

“Can I help you?” he asks. 

Goro rolls his eyes a little, teeth chattering. 

“Clearly I got stuck out in the rain,” he mutters. “Can I please come in, sir? Sorry to bother you at this hour and all, considering we’re strangers too. I’m just a bit lost as is.” 

“Just get in here.” Akira steps aside for Goro to walk in. “My name is Akira.” 

“Goro. Pleasure. Would you happen to have dry clothes on hand? I could make do with a blowdryer, but...no power hm?”

“I have a fireplace that’s going in the main room,” Akira offers. 

“That sounds lovely, Akira.” 

His mouth curls pleasantly around the name, testing it out although the use is unnecessary. Akira watches his lips form the shape of it again, and then he nods to himself. Maybe he’s emboldened by the idea that Akira can’t see him well.  _ Shouldn’t  _ see him well, that is. 

“Go on, I’ll get you a towel and some dry clothes.” 

Goro starts to move carefully towards the main room. So Akira walks up the stairs, listening as the music fades a little and all that’s left to hear is the relentless patter of rain. A lightning flash, then thunder. 

Akira pushes open the door to his room, pristine and hardly ever slept in. He has a standing wardrobe, and when opened it seems to house just sleepwear alone. Akira picks a nightshirt at random, takes a towel from a hallway closet he locates without thinking, and hurries back down to Goro. 

He’s sitting in front of the fireplace, and Akira drops the pile of supplies next to him. 

“Thank you,” Goro murmurs. 

“Would you prefer tea, coffee, or hot cocoa?” 

“Tea.”

“What kind?”

“What do you have?”

“All kinds,” Akira dismisses, already set to wander into the kitchen. 

“All kinds?” Goro teases lightly. 

“Answer the question,” Akira teases back. 

“Earl Grey. Milk and honey, if you have it.”

Akira nods and retreats into the kitchen. He pulls the leaves down for Earl Grey and sets a kettle of water down on the stove. He lights it with a match that’s laying around nearby. 

While that heats, he finds the milk and honey, which he hates in his tea. Is he a tea snob? He thinks Goro made him a tea snob. 

He fixes them both cups, carrying each back with care to the main room. Just as he enters, he watches Goro gently place the needle back down on a record. Soft piano notes come through in a familiar tune, and in his next breath Akira realizes it’s  _ their  _ song. Goro made their song into a record and placed it in his collection and now a version of him who doesn’t remember that is playing it on a record player he has in his main room like he isn’t a stranger at all. 

“Oh, sorry. I’ve always loved old things like this.” Goro blushes lightly. “I couldn’t resist, it was like the record was calling to me!”

“It’s alright,” Akira says. 

Goro is dressed in his nightshirt now, which Akira now realizes are quite old fashioned as well. They go all the way to Goro’s knees. 

Still, it is rather cute. 

Akira hands Goro his tea, and sits with him on the couch by the fire. They don’t speak, Akira drinks his tea and Goro drinks his. 

But Goro’s eyes are bright and sharp, and the silence between them isn’t uncomfortable. 

When the song ends, Goro stands up. He walks over to the record player and restarts the record before sitting with Akira again. 

“I hope you aren’t a serial killer this time,” Akira sighs. 

“Do you...normally get serial killers around here?”

Akira grins at him, shrugs. 

“Not normally, but it still wouldn’t be the first time.”

Goro laughs, a short bark that he stifles quickly. His face is starting to regain some color now, and he pulls his legs up onto the couch like he’s ready to get comfortable. 

“Well, I hope you aren’t a serial killer either,” Goro says. “It would be a shame.”

“What, to die?”

Goro laughs again, little helpless sounds that fall out of his mouth despite a seemingly large effort to stop himself. Akira beams back at him. 

“Well,  _ yes.  _ But I meant because...you seem interesting. It’d be a shame if you weren’t as good as you looked.”

“How good do I look?”

Goro hums thoughtfully, eyes trailing down his body and then back up to his eyes. It’s still a bit dark, but it’s clear Goro can see plenty with the fireplace right in front of them and the candles in the room. 

“Extremely,” Goro answers. 

“You ought to be more careful, you don’t even know me.” 

“ _ Should _ I be worried? Are you planning on taking advantage of me?” Goro’s voice is hardly a whisper. 

Akira can’t stop looking at him. The record runs out in the background, and Goro gets up to restart it before he can think of something to say. Akira doesn’t want to tell him it has an autoplay feature. 

“Well?” Goro prompts. 

Akira swallows hard, and he thinks he might start drooling. He thinks he’s hungry, even. Goro is in front of him in hardly anything, flushed warm and alive and…

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he manages. 

Goro sits back next to him, an inch closer. 

“What do you do for a living?” Goro asks him. 

The answer is everything. He’s done everything, he’s part of old money as it was and over time he’s done so many things and been so many people. 

“Nothing right now. Rich family,” he explains. 

“I see. Are you close with them?”

“They passed away,” Akira dismisses quickly. 

“Ah...I’m sorry?”

“It is what it is.” Akira shrugs a little helplessly. “But what about you? What do you do?”

“Oh I’m a psychologist. I’m a counselor at a school right now. Well not right now, I suppose. It’s summer break for them, so I’m part time serving for now.” 

“It suits you,” Akira says. 

“Just by looking at me?”

“Yeah.”

Goro shakes his head with a small smile, then sneezes. 

“Bless you.” Akira grabs the blanket over the back of the couch and wraps it around Goro’s shoulders. “I hope you don’t get a cold because I didn’t open the door fast enough.”

“I shouldn’t have been outside in the first place. I just really love storms.” 

“You like a lot of things. Is there anything you don’t like?” Akira prods. 

“I just have a lot of love for life.” Goro pulls the blanket tight around himself. “I guess...I don’t like soup.” 

“Soup?”

“Creamy soup at least. I don’t like the texture.” 

Akira snorts, nodding slowly. 

“Okay, I won’t make that for you,” Akira promises. “That is, if you stay for long.” 

“This is weird. It’s weird, right?”

“Probably.” 

“I want to stay,” Goro admits, earnest and real. 

“Then stay.” 

Goro gets up to restart the record, and this time Akira tells him there’s an autoplay button. Goro doesn’t turn it on. They keep talking, and Goro keeps getting up to replay the record. 

Goro stays. 

When he has to go to work, Akira follows. He sits in a worn down booth in a tiny diner and tells Goro he thinks his apron is cute. 

“It’s my uniform,” Goro reminds him. 

“I like it.” 

“Don’t be inappropriate while I’m working.” 

“I’m always inappropriate,” Akira dismisses. “It’s an entire personality trait.” 

“Suck it up.” 

Akira smiles at him, and even though Goro rolls his eyes so hard it must be painful he’s also grinning widely. He sets down Akira’s food, and leans back against the edge of the table to watch him take his first bite. Akira doesn’t need to eat, but he keeps some food around because he likes it well enough. And when he takes a bite of the bacon cheeseburger Goro insisted on until he caved...he thinks he should eat more often. 

“Good?” Goro prompts. 

Akira just gives him a wordless thumbs up, mouth still full. 

“Goro...excuse me.” The hostess, a meek teenager who could be Futaba, comes over to them. “I just sat you another table.”

“How many?” Goro asks. 

“Two adults and three kids, at table four. Sorry, I know your shift is almost over.” 

“Don’t worry about it, I’m here anyway. I’ll be right there.” Goro pushes off from the table and stretches. “Alright, look after yourself for a few seconds. I’ll be back.” 

Akira keeps eating, and he watches Goro. Watches the way he moves around, juggles all the things he’s holding with clear ease. The way he talks to the kids, soft and sweet. He jokes with the whole family, lightening the tense atmosphere that seems to surround them, and he even gets their toddler to stop crying with a pad of stickers he pulls out of his apron. 

Akira is beginning to learn that Goro is really,  _ really  _ good with people. He never would’ve sought refuge with Akira if he wasn’t, if he couldn’t read him. But he can, he nailed Akira down to a t, and he keeps proving just how much of a talent he has interacting with others. Charismatic, beautiful, and just...so intelligent. 

His Goro. 

Akira stays, even though Goro starts running around and he’s finished anyway. He pays his bill with a staggering tip and sits back to wait. 

Goro comes to get him at the end of his shift, stalking over first and flicking Akira square on the forehead. 

“Ow,” he says. 

“You...why’d you tip me so much?”

“It was good service.”

“You tipped me more than the bill was!” Goro hisses. 

“It was  _ really  _ good service.”

Goro sighs, and taps his foot as Akira gathers his things to stand up. He looks at him, they look at each other. 

Their excuses for staying together have run out. It’s dark out, late at night. Akira could mention as much, that maybe it would be worth just going back to Akira’s place. It’s close and convenient and Akira desperately wants to hold onto Goro for longer. 

“Come with me,” Goro says. “I have something I want to show you.”

Goro finds another reason for them.

“Alright,” Akira agrees, with not a second of hesitation. 

Akira drives them, since he drove them both here. Goro called it a Lincoln Continental, and that’s probably correct considering what Akira can remember. It’s from the 1960’s, still new to his immortal mind. 

Goro doesn’t tell him where they’re going, just tells him which way to go and when. They twist down unfamiliar roads and side streets until they pull into an abandoned parking lot. Akira faintly recognizes the beach they’re at, but it seems to be the opposite side from where people normally enter. 

“You can get on the bluffs from here,” Goro explains. “Come on.” 

Akira goes. 

They abandon their shoes once they get to a spot Goro deems as good enough. They lay down in the grass, and press close because summer nights get cold. Goro swears that’s the only reason, and Akira just laughs at him for it. 

“Stop looking at me,” Goro chastises. “Look up.”

Goro grabs his chin to turn it, and Akira suddenly has an eye full of stars. They spread out entirely across the sky, and he wants to cry for a moment. He thinks about sitting up with Goro in a windowsill and looking up at the same sky. Goro told him he loved the view, but not how he loved him and oh how he loved him. 

Akira traces constellations Goro taught him in that life with his finger.

“If the moon were a person...would you love Her?” Goro asks. 

Akira’s heart stops. He swears, he knows his heart doesn’t beat because of his status as undead. But it starts and stops around Goro. 

“What?” he chokes. 

“I think I would. But not...how I normally love. I would love Her as an ethereal being.” Goro outstretches his hands towards the moon. “As something unattainable, to be admired but never touched. Art.”

“How do you normally love?” Akira asks. 

“With...everything I have. Every inch of my being, fiercely. Stubbornly, I guess. Once I’m in love, I fight for it.” Goro breathes out something that could be a sigh or just a breath or maybe it’s a whisper Akira can’t hear. “I...love life. I love being alive. I love people. I love loving. I love like that. I just love, whatever that may be in any given moment.”

Goro’s eyes are reflecting the light of the stars. Akira’s skin is cold, but it’s warm where Goro is pressed against him. 

“I want to feel the way you love,” Akira admits, just like then. 

But this is different. 

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No.” Akira looks at the moon. “I wouldn’t. I don’t love easily. I don’t think even the moon would be an exception. I would admire Her, at least.” 

“Have you ever had an exception?”

Akira looks at Goro. They’re looking at each other now, and the waves are crashing against the shore, and it's still a little cold so Goro gets closer. And Akira nods. 

“How did you love them?”

“I...more than I could ever truly comprehend, considering he was the first person to ever make me feel that way.” 

“Was?”

Goro’s eyes are big, listening and taking in every word Akira gives him. It’s clear he doesn’t truly remember, not in a way that Goro could know Akira is talking about him. 

“He’s not really around,” Akira half lies. “Anymore. But, I loved him the best I could, I think. I improved over time. It was new and unsure, and...everything to me. I think I love like the object of my affections is the only person in the world. I want to share everything with them, live every moment in between their breaths, entangle our lives until it’s together. Irreversibly together.” 

“I think that’s beautiful,” Goro murmurs. 

Akira sits up, and Goro stands. He runs down to the beach and jumps in the water fully clothed, so Akira gives one last, grateful glance to the stars and chases after him. 

Goro’s head pops out of the waves, laughing and coughing a little. 

“Fuck, it’s cold!” he calls. 

They’re alone on the beach, probably because it’s the middle of the night. Or really early morning, at this point. Akira throws his shirt off to the side and wades in after Goro. The water is freezing, not that it bothers him much considering being undead and all. Goro is already shivering though. 

“Why in the world did you jump in then?” Akira sighs, hefting him up out of the water. 

“Put me down!” Goro argues, squirming in his hold. “I like the water, I’m fine. I’m not gonna get sick,  _ Mom _ .”

“Fine.”

Akira pulls him up more, then throws him back in. 

He’s under for long enough that Akira starts to worry. How long can humans hold their breath? He should probably go after him. 

And then something grabs his ankle and he gets yanked under. 

When he resurfaces, gasping, Goro is cackling. 

Akira splashes him. Goro comes out on the other side of it spluttering and indignant. 

“Truce, truce!” Goro begs, spitting out water. “You win, I give up!”

“Really?”

Goro holds his hand out, and Akira slowly takes it to shake. 

“Truce--”

Goro pulls his hand and pushes his head underwater. Akira fights him back quickly and gets back up, but the damage is done. Goro is laughing again, unashamed and high and bright and beautiful and that bastard. 

Akira hefts him up, fully intent on chucking him back in and letting him stay under for longer this time. And then the moon settles behind Goro’s head, illuminating him in a backdrop of beauty and…

Akira wants to kiss him. Akira wants to pull Goro close and tell him everything and beg him to please let himself be saved this time. 

Goro is still laughing, breathlessly begging him not to throw him please he can’t breathe and  _ Akira stop it _ . 

“Alright,” he gives. “Let’s go to the car before we both catch colds.”

“No,” Goro whines. “Come on, I’m having fun!” 

“We can have fun at home,” Akira dismisses. 

Goro is so fragile here. His body is shivering, and he could get really sick if they stay here so long. Akira loves chaos, but he loves Goro more. 

“Home?” Goro asks. 

“Oh.” Akira hadn’t even caught himself. “Sorry, it just slipped out.” 

“What kind of fun are we going to have, sir?” Goro asks, a whisper brushed against his ear. 

Akira loses himself a little. He considers pulling them close in the water and making warm between the two of them. Map out Goro’s body, love every inch of him. Entirely, with everything he is. 

And then Goro giggles. 

“Your face!” He laughs. “Oh, priceless. You’re so easy,  _ Akira _ . Carry me to the car!” 

Akira lifts him above the waves and complies. 

The next day, Goro comes down with a nasty cold, despite Akira’s best efforts. Even though he got a warm fire and tea with milk and honey and Akira’s dry clothes the second they were in the car. 

Goro is in Akira’s bed that he hardly sleeps in, curled up with a red face and complaining quietly about wanting to get up. 

“You’re sick,” Akira reminds him, again. “You need rest.”

“You know some species of sharks need to keep moving so water flows through their gills and they can breathe,” Goro tells him. 

Akira pauses, a bit caught off guard. 

“Okay?”

“I feel like that sometimes.” Goro coughs. “Fuck. Like I need to keep moving, or I’ll die. But sometimes I’m so sick of moving, and I want to go to sleep forever. I don’t know. I think about it a lot when I’m sick and stuck.”

“You can’t sleep forever. Who else could live and love like you?” 

Goro smiles gently at him. His face is flushed with fever, but Akira has already given him whatever medicine he can take and fed him and bundled him up in an attempt to break said fever. He knows he’s fussing, but he’s worried. Whatever the challenge is this time, he can’t...he can’t let the last two lives happen again. 

Where it just happens and he can’t do anything about it. 

He doesn’t think Goro is going to die from a common cold, but he’s still worried out of his mind. 

“That’s why I keep moving anyway. The threat of death on my heels keeps me on my toes.”

“Aren’t you scared of it?” Akira blurts. 

“Of what? Dying?”

Akira closes his eyes and nods frantically. Death sounds so final, terrifying and abrupt. So mortal. It makes him feel sick to his stomach. 

“Hm. No,” Goro answers. “Well yes, but it just...is. Everyone dies, everyone is going to die. Life is only life because one day there will be death to walk hand in hand with it. As Homer once wrote…‘Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed’, yes? I’m never going to be sick in your bed talking about this with you again.” 

“You could be,” Akira says softly. 

“Not exactly like this. Every moment in life is unpredictable and volatile. And yet it’s also unique, any second to second isn’t quite alike in any two ways. Life is full of twists and turns and sometimes you run off road a little, but...that’s life. It only means something because it ends.” 

Akira takes his hand to squeeze. To press a finger to his pulse and reassure himself that yes, Goro is currently alive. He hasn’t failed yet. 

“Don’t worry,” Goro murmurs. “I’m not done moving yet. I’ll get some rest, alright?”

Goro is fine within the next two days. 

Akira doesn’t know how long they’re going to dance around each other like this. He’s letting this happen, he knows he’s as much a contributor to their game as Goro is. He allows the closeness, Goro hasn’t left his house in the entire month of June now. He visits Goro when he goes to work, and they do a lot of things together. Almost everything. Not quite everything yet, but just about. 

He learns the hostess at his work is Futaba, and she’s Goro’s younger sister. Sojiro adopted both of them from the foster care system when they were still young, and Akira has met him once now. They had coffee together at the diner one Sunday morning during Goro’s shift. 

Akira has sat with Goro and looked through his phone, pictures of the kids he’s counseled. Listened to him rattle off about his favorites and who wanted to do what when they grow up and who gave him trouble and who he wished gave him more trouble. 

Goro shares the pieces of himself, handing them over with hardly any caution. He prefers cats over dogs, he loves thunderstorms, when he needs to relax he always turns to music, he keeps his nails neatly trimmed and likes his hair at a particular length, he’s obsessed with reading, and he loves life more than anything. Goro likes to live, and he lives so perfectly. He drags Akira out of the house at all hours to do things Akira didn’t know people did. They climb trees in Akira’s backyard at six in the morning, tracking mud back into the house from the short summer shower a few hours prior. They watch horror movies, even though Goro is easily scared, in mostly empty theaters and Akira just smiles everytime Goro clings to him during a scary scene. They cook together, and Goro is decent at it while Akira clearly has a knack. Or maybe he’s just had more practice, he isn’t sure. Goro gives up pretty quickly, simply loitering around the kitchen every time Akira cooks. Sometimes Akira gives him busywork to do so he feels like he’s helping, and sometimes he just watches Goro lean against the counter and wants to kiss him so badly it hurts. Goro is good at baking, though. He’s phenomenal at it, and he takes to making something whenever they run out. Once they eat all the cookies, he’ll have Akira pick something else for him to make and once they run out of that he’ll repeat the cycle. There’s always something baked sitting around, and Akira gets used to smelling the sweet scent of baking in the air every other morning. They go through Akira’s records and listen to all of them, even though it takes them a few days to do so. Goro says their song is still his favorite, although Akira can’t name the song for him and they can’t find the sleeve it belongs in. Goro just calls it the record, emphasis on  _ the.  _

Akira offers pieces of himself. Slowly, carefully. He matches up the places where the lines of himself, the god, and himself, the immortal here, intersect. He gives Goro those overlaps. 

But he doesn’t tell Goro about his immortal status, his...vampire situation. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t. When Goro sleeps, Akira breaks into the store of blood that he keeps in the wine cellar and drinks that to take the edge off. But he keeps it quiet, hushes it up. 

He knows why. 

Goro is in love with life, and he said so himself that it’s only because it ends. Because there’s death at the end of it. 

What would Goro think of him, knowing his won’t end? 

Akira let’s their lives entangle and doesn’t breathe a word of it. 

They go grocery shopping every Monday. 

Goro showers every morning at five, dead set in a routine that doesn’t quite fit his life anymore. Akira doesn’t need to sleep, so he sleeps when Goro is sleeping and gets up once he’s awake. The things Goro can’t know about are done in his sleeping hours, when Akira is sure he won’t wake up. Goro is a heavy sleeper as is, anyway. 

Akira makes them breakfast while Goro showers. Usually nothing big. He brews them coffee too, by hand. From scratch. Because apparently he’s also a coffee snob, and he doesn’t mind much because Goro always marvels at how good it is. When Akira hands him his plate and mug of coffee and walks with him to the dining room to eat, it feels like...almost like. Almost domestic. 

But that still hurts, so Akira doesn’t think about it too much. 

He almost always makes them sandwiches for lunch. Goro loves sandwiches, and Akira has no idea why. He still humors the whim every time. Even when Goro insists he can make something else, Akira’s hands always reach for the bread when lunchtime rolls around. They have tea with lunch. Goro will pick one at random, and it usually doesn’t pair very well but Akira doesn’t really care. Goro has fun with it. 

Akira makes grand dinners. Full course meals that Goro devours and thanks him endlessly for. Sometimes they drink wine with it, or beer, or just anything they have around that goes well with it. These meals make Goro beam, make him groan after about how full he is and  _ gee Akira are you trying to make me fat?  _

On Sunday nights, Goro takes baths. Sometimes. When Goro takes baths, they’re always on Sunday nights. They’re always bubble baths, and he always takes almost exactly an hour and a half. Akira usually hears him refill the bath at least once, usually twice. He comes out relaxed and sweet, and those are the nights they curl together in the main room and listen to music with the TV on, but muted. Goro will scroll through his phone, hair still wet and dripping a little onto Akira’s shoulder, and Akira will just...let it happen. He’ll listen to the music, sometimes hum along, and sometimes they dance. Not often, maybe every other time. Less. Every third time. Goro starts it, he’ll get up and Akira will follow and they’ll just start dancing without saying anything. They never say anything. 

And now, on this Sunday night, they’re dancing to  _ the  _ record. 

“The lease on my apartment is almost up,” Goro says. 

Akira is so surprised by Goro speaking at all that he stops dead in their waltz. Goro tugs him to follow through the motion, and as if it was nothing more than a stutter, they continue. 

“Hm?” Akira hums. 

“Should I renew it? I’m never there,” Goro points out. 

That’s true. Most of Goro’s belongings are here now, and he only goes back there every once in a while to make sure it hasn’t burned down. Or when he realizes there’s something else he needs, which he then brings to Akira’s house and erases another reason for him to return. 

“Move in,” Akira offers, immediately. 

“I figured you’d say that.” Goro presses in a little too close for a waltz. “But...first you need to tell me what we are. I need to know, before I make that decision.” 

“Wait,” he murmurs. “This is your favorite part.” 

It is. The big crescendo, right near the end. Goro loves it, every time it comes around he gets this twinkle in his eyes like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. 

“ _ Akira _ ,” Goro sighs, exasperated. 

He never fails to say Akira’s name like that. Carefully shaping his mouth around it, like he’s not quite finished tossing it around to try it out. 

“Come on, you’d hate to miss it.”

Goro rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. Akira spins him, quickening their pace to keep up with the music. Goro throws his head back and cackles, and it makes Akira lose count. So he just lets them be out of step, twirls Goro and dips him and dances with him however he pleases while Goro laughs helplessly. 

The music calms, but it does nothing to calm Akira. Goro is beautiful, and right here. Akira has never wanted to kiss him more. Goro is still laughing, eyes full of life and love, and he broke their promise not to talk while they dance but he...wants to move in. If Akira can give him a reason, a reason to stay. 

Goro pulls away from him, and Akira reaches back for him. But he’s just going to the record player to restart it, and then he’s right back in Akira’s arms. 

“We--”

“I know,” Goro says. 

And Goro kisses him. 

And Goro moves in. 

Goro starts calling  _ the  _ record  _ their  _ song instead. 

They spend the rest of the summer together. Not much changes. They shower together now, when they can. Sunday night baths become weekly, and they bathe together. Akira is thanked for each meal with a kiss on the cheek. And Akira’s room becomes both of theirs. And it’s around then that…

“Goro, there’s something I need to tell you,” Akira says. 

“Are we breaking up?”

“What? No.” 

Goro tilts his head to the side, squinting in clear concentration. He looks at Akira, then his eyes widen in apparent clarity. 

“Oh, are you about to tell me you’re a vampire or some other creature that requires blood for sustainment and are undead? Because I knew that.”

Akira reels back, and he can’t even think of a response. He just sort of waves his hands around in disbelief until Goro laughs. 

“My love, you don’t have a heartbeat. And you forgot to brush your teeth the last time you drank blood, so when you kissed me I tasted it. You’re not very secretive.” 

Akira drops his head down on the table and bangs it there a good few times. Goro laughs harder and pets through his hair until he stops. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I know you were scared to tell me, I don’t mind that you took your time.”

“You believe me?”

“Obviously. I mean the whole immortal thing isn’t for me, but...it is what it is.” Goro smiles tightly at him. “I care about you enough to make it work.” 

“I’ll make it work for you,” Akira promises. 

“I know you will.” 

It doesn’t seem to  _ not  _ bother Goro, but it’s also obvious that it doesn’t bother him enough. Not as much as Akira thought it would. 

Goro asks him questions about it. About the myths, about when he was bitten, how old he is. Then he asks questions about turning other people, about the whole blood thing. 

Akira gives him answers to the best of his ability, and Goro takes all the information in with care. He really thinks about it, Akira can see the way he turns it over in his head and coincides each detail. 

“Bite me,” Goro spits at him one day. 

They’re having a tiny little spat over the state of their shared closet. Akira has things in their places, even if it doesn’t look neat. Goro likes things to look orderly, or he gets swept up in the chaos. They’ve had this quarrel before, but they have yet to find a real solution to it either way. Akira is considering getting another closet. 

“Is that a promise?” Akira shoots back, sneering enough he hopes his fangs flash. 

And Goro pauses. 

“Could you? Without turning me?” Goro asks, raising a hand to his chin. 

“What? I...think so. But what?”

“Do you want to?” Goro presses further, taking a step forward. 

“Yes,” Akira blurts. 

“Good, I think you should. Cold blood can’t be nearly as healthy for you. It’s not flowing anymore, right? Maybe that’s why you always look so sick.” Goro is fussing now, pressing his hands to Akira’s cheeks. “Alright, let’s try it.”

“Now?”

“When else?” Goro asks, clearly annoyed. “Yes, now. Come on.”

“It’ll make a mess,” Akira argues weakly. 

“That’s ridiculous. You never care about that. Just do it. I want you to.” 

Akira doesn’t know when he got so close to Goro’s neck, but he’s here now and he can feel the pulse just under his lips. He bites, keeping his head long enough to listen for Goro, for any sign this hurts him. But he just makes a low humming noise and goes half limp in Akira’s arms. 

The taste hits his tongue, and it doesn’t taste like blood like what he drank before. No, this tastes like life, it tastes like Goro. Warm and flowing and addictingly alive. 

When Akira manages to pull himself away, Goro smiles at him woozily. 

“Your heart started beating,” Goro tells him. 

Akira doesn’t do it all the time, because he’s much too worried about Goro staying healthy. But every other month, always on Sundays, always after their bath and their waltz and the biggest meal Akira can make for him. He’ll drink Goro’s life straight from the vein and feel more alive for it. And he coddles Goro after, his heart beating half out of his chest. 

Goro is getting ready to go back to school, the summer coming to a close now. There’s something bright in him, like excitement. He tells Akira he  _ is  _ excited, that he loves what he does and he wouldn’t give it up for anything. 

Akira doesn’t know exactly how much he understands that. 

“I’m passionate about it,” Goro explains. “It makes me happy. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“But it’s work,” Akira says. 

“Yes, and it’s not always the best. But I get to help these kids the best I can, and it makes a difference I wish I had when I was growing up. I didn’t...have the best teenage years. I want to be the difference I wish I saw,” Goro says softly. 

Passion. To be passionate about something. Akira doesn’t know if he has something like that. Maybe chaos, creating a disorder to bring about his husband’s order. Only in disrupting what doesn’t work can you bring about what does. That’s something Akira is passionate about. But he doesn’t know if he can explain that to this Goro. 

“I think I get it,” he says. 

Goro smiles at him, kissing his cheek. 

“You don’t,” Goro murmurs. “But that’s okay. I’m sure you’ll find something, my heart.” 

Goro drags him to a real hole in the wall cafe. It’s abandoned, a real shithole honestly...and then Akira makes eye contact with Sojiro behind the counter and smiles sheepishly. 

“Nice place,” he compliments. 

“Nice save,” Goro snickers. 

“Sit down,” Sojiro tells them. “Stop blocking the door for all my lovely customers.” 

“Missed you, Dad,” Goro says, like it’s a direct response. 

“Missed you too kid. I mean it, sit down already.”

They sit and drink tea and eat sandwiches for lunch because it’s like a ritual now. Goro whispers to him that he prefers Akira’s sandwiches, and Sojiro hears and nearly runs them both out of the cafe on the spot. 

“I’m really glad we’re together,” Goro tells him, leaning back lazily in the booth. 

Goro always polishes his plate and gets too full, which makes him sleepy. Akira pulls his head down to rest on his shoulder, half hoping Goro falls asleep on him. It’s so cute when he does. 

“Me too,” Akira says quietly. 

“Really. I’m so happy to be alive here and now. Living my life the way I am, with you.” Goro intertwines their fingers. “I really love my life. I really love  _ you _ .”

Akira turns to hide his face in Goro’s hair. His chest feels full. It’s only been a few days since he drank from Goro, and his heart is still giving valiant pumps in his chest. Goro has a hand pressed over his chest now, another to his pulse. Listening to what he does to Akira. 

“I love you too,” Akira chokes. “I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“I knew that,” Goro teases. “Come on, let’s go home.” 

They do. Akira’s house becomes their home. They love each other. Akira takes the best care of Goro he possibly can and loves him as much as he can every single day. 

And then Goro gets sick. 

It starts with the coughing. A cold, they think. The flu, they worry. He starts to lose weight, even though he eats the same. He’s more tired, sleeps in and can’t move around as easily. 

They have an argument about what’s happening, and Akira finally makes Goro go get it checked out. 

Akira sits in the waiting room with Sojiro, because he insisted on coming and Goro let him. None of them say anything, actually he can feel the way each of their anxieties about the situation fill the air and leave the other people waiting unnerved. 

Goro comes out with a doctor, talking to the receptionist in clipped and hushed voices. Akira can’t move. Sojiro stands, but Goro waves him away from walking over. 

Goro walks over instead, standing in front of them both. 

“I have lung cancer,” he says slowly. “Stage one. It ran in the family, I think. I’m getting surgery, and doing all the treatments, and I know it’s going to be just fine. Don’t panic.” 

Sojiro takes a deep breath. He sighs, long and tired. 

“Just...tell me what you need from me, kid. Anything. Please, ask me for help.” 

“I will Dad, don’t worry,” Goro promises. 

Akira can’t say anything. His voice is shriveled up and it won’t work and he might start crying if he keeps thinking about this.

“Akira, breathe,” Goro tells him. 

Akira doesn’t need to breathe. He tested it. He only does it out of habit. 

“Breathe,” Goro says. 

Goro breathes, slowly. So Akira copies him, and slowly his brain starts to work again. Cancer is a big scary word but it’s not always fatal and this is early. They caught it. 

“Okay.” Akira holds Goro’s hands, tightly in his. “Yes. We’ll...we’ll figure it out.”

“We will,” Goro murmurs. “We always do.” 

They figure it out. Akira keeps the house tidy and Goro comfortable and he gets the surgery. He goes through chemotherapy after it. He doesn’t eat as much, sleeps most days, and loses his hair. He gets sick often, and Akira looks at him every day and loves him as much as he can muster when he feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest. It hasn’t beat in a long time now, but Goro still presses his hand over it like he can feel it anyway. 

But Goro gets better. He fights it so hard Akira can see the exhaustion in his features etch themselves in to stay. But he gets better. 

He doesn’t go back to normal, and Akira isn’t sure he’s ever going to go back to the way he was before. But somehow he seems to love life even more, he loves everything harder and holds on tighter like the brush with death has changed something fundamentally in him. Like the reminder that his life could end at any moment has made everything clearer and more beautiful. Akira loves him the same as he always has. 

Goro finally goes back to work, and seems happier for it. Tired, but still happy. 

The whole ordeal doesn’t last that long, in retrospect. Goro’s hair grows back quickly, and he never got really sick in the first place. 

The life doesn’t end, though. So Akira is still careful. 

Goro starts gaining his weight back with his appetite, eating Akira’s three meals a day again. They sleep together and it’s warm again. Goro had been so cold when he was sick, and now he’s warm and alive and moving again. Akira is so full of relief over it that he could cry. 

“Can you die?” Goro asks him, in the middle of their Sunday night bath. “I know you don’t age, but  _ can  _ you die?”

Akira’s hands still, in the middle of scrubbing shampoo into Goro’s hair. It’s cute short, although Akira misses the length. 

“I...yes. We’re only a little stronger than humans, and we don’t get sick or have any basic needs, but anything that can kill a human can kill a vampire with a little more effort.” 

“I don’t envy you,” Goro sighs, leaning back against his chest. 

“You wouldn’t be immortal, given the choice?” Akira asks, though he knows the answer. 

“Of course not. Being immortal would mean I’d stop moving. There would be no meaning to my life, I...that sounds awful,” Goro mutters. 

“Not even if it would save your life? If you got sick again?”

Goro shakes his head. 

“I’d rather die than live hollowly.” 

So Akira lives with Goro as fully as he can. They do everything they want to and some things they regret, and Goro keeps working and loving life and Akira looks after the house and loves Goro. He thinks that’s his passion. He likes what he’s doing, he likes cooking and cleaning and taking care of things so Goro doesn’t have to. It makes him happy. 

Eventually, Akira starts drinking from Goro again. It takes a lot of coaxing on Goro’s part, but it makes Akira feel alive again and he missed that so much. The first time the taste hits his tongue again, he cries like a baby and Goro has to coddle him after instead of the other way around. 

Summer rolls around again before Akira even knows it. 

“Alright,” Goro says, walking back in after his last day of school. “Let’s just get married, then.”

Akira stops before he starts playing the record he was about to put on. He blinks back at Goro. 

There’s no indication that he’s joking, he looks determined and excited and he’s got a box in his hand. 

“You wanna say that again?”

“Let’s get married,” Goro repeats, flipping the box open to show him a ring. “I’m not returning this.” 

“Yes, Goro,” Akira teases, grinning wildly. “I  _ will  _ marry you, thank you for asking.” 

“I didn’t have to ask,” Goro insists. 

“Are you going to come here and put the ring on me at least?”

Goro walks over and slides the ring over his finger. 

And they get married. 

They do some paperwork and have a small ceremony with Sojiro and Futaba and call it a day. 

They dance to their song in the evening and hum it to each other. 

That’s all it is. 

The game rears its ugly head the day Goro comes home from a checkup crying. Akira hardly pokes his head around the corner before it’s all slamming doors and screaming and finally...collapsing in the main room by the record player and sobbing his eyes out. 

Akira slowly sets the record back on track to play softly in the background, what he thinks Goro was trying to do. 

And he kneels down in front of him, takes his face in his hands as gently as he’s capable of doing. Wipes some tears away, so Goro can see him. And he starts breathing, until Goro breathes with him and starts to calm down. 

Goro moves forward to curl up in his lap, making himself small in his arms. 

“What happened?” Akira asks softly. 

He’s afraid of the answer. He’s never seen Goro so beside himself. 

“It’s back,” Goro murmurs, and starts crying again. 

Akira blinks wetness from his eyes and squeezes Goro tightly. Goro grips his shirt, trying to push closer than close. 

“It’s back,” Goro repeats. “Why is it back, Akira? I beat it, and I’m living more for it. It was supposed to be over, I did everything they told me to do. Chemotherapy hurt more than the cancer, but I did it anyway. Why is this happening to me? Please God I don’t want to die!” 

“I know,” Akira soothes, petting through his hair. 

“I’m scared,” he admits. “Akira, I’m scared. I don’t want to do it again, I don’t want to be in that pain all over. But I don’t want to die either. I just want it to stop.” 

“I’m sorry. I’ve got you.”

It’s all he can say. 

Goro gets really sick this time. He loses so much weight he’s mostly bones, and he can’t move too much for too long. He gets headaches, he coughs up blood. The chemotherapy wrecks him this time, it makes him sick. He throws up a lot, which makes him lose more weight. The hair that had taken so long to grow back falls out all over again, and Goro has a meltdown when it does. And then he cries for a long time, and Akira feels like his chest is torn open as he picks up the pieces of glass Goro broke in his fit. 

It’s worse when Goro starts getting sluggish. Lethargic, like he’s considering going to sleep forever. 

They’re laying in bed together, and Goro is hardly fighting sleep. He’s pressed close, and even with all the blankets piled on them, they’re both still freezing. It doesn’t bother Akira, but Goro is shaking. 

“I love you very much,” Goro whispers. “You mean so much to me. I’m so happy we met, and I wouldn’t trade a moment of our lives for anything.” 

Akira brushes a thumb against Goro’s cheek. 

“If I turn you--”   
“No.” Goro shakes his head. 

“But you’d get better.” 

“I’d rather die than live like that.” 

“But you’d get better and we’d have each other. It wouldn’t be empty,” Akira argues. “I can save you, Goro.”

“I don’t want you to. I’m sorry, Akira. I don’t love you more than I want my life to have meaning. I love you so much more than I could ever describe to you, but I would be miserable.”

“But you’d be alive.” 

“What would the point be of being alive then?” Goro sighs, and shakes his head. “No. I’m not done fighting yet. Please, let me do this myself. What you do for me already is more than enough.”

And then Goro gets worse. They say it’s spreading, and Goro looks so tired. He needs surgery again, and more medicine and more treatment and he has to fight harder when he looks like he’s running low on that willpower. 

Goro coughs in these disgusting fits that come up bloody and violent. More often than not it ends in vomit and crying and both of them unsure if it’s ever going to stop. Akira will rub his back as he hacks helplessly into the toilet, sometimes spitting blood and bile into the toilet and sometimes just sobbing and praying for it to  _ end end end please stop.  _

Akira will force water down his throat and be grateful if he can make Goro swallow a single drop of it. Sometimes they both cry, and sometimes when it’s over Akira just presses his back to the nearest wall and closes his eyes and feels so tired he wonders if he does actually need sleep. 

He doesn’t sleep much anymore. Even when Goro begs him, he refuses. He watches Goro instead, to make sure he doesn’t stop breathing in his sleep. 

Goro barely eats anymore. Akira feeds him tea, eggs, toast, and rice. Soup, not creamy. He gets more blankets, warmer clothes, lots of hats for Goro to wear. Usually he has Goro set up by the fireplace, and does just about everything and anything for him. On the good days, Goro insists on playing their song over and over. On really  _ really  _ good days, Goro gets up to dance with him to it. They laugh and talk and press close and Akira mostly has to hold Goro up but he doesn’t mind. When it gets to Goro’s favorite part, they always kiss. Goro always kisses him, and says his name in that way he always says it. Like he loves it. 

On the bad days, Akira wonders if Goro is going to die. On really  _ really  _ bad days, Akira wonders  _ when  _ he’s going to die. 

They start talking about admitting Goro entirely to the hospital so they can monitor him constantly. Well Goro starts talking about it with his doctors, and refuses unless he gets any worse than he already is. Akira gets so mad over it that he has to take a walk around the house several times before he doesn’t feel like he’s going to scream. 

He wants Goro to get better. He doesn’t care what it takes, he doesn’t care if he doesn’t get to be by Goro’s side anymore, as long as these doctors just make him better already. 

The bad days start to outnumber the good ones by a considerable amount. 

Goro writes out a will. 

“I’m tired,” Goro tells him as he seals the paper away. 

“Please don’t give up,” Akira says. 

And he’s tired too. He feels like he begs Goro every day to hold on now. 

“I’m not giving up. I’m not done moving, I’m doing everything I can to live. You know I love my life, and I love you. The hardest part of this is...that I might have to leave you behind.” Goro turns to cradle his face. “But if I have to go, I have to. And you...you have to stay, Akira. Look at me, and tell me you’ll stay if I go.”

Akira leans into the touch, as cold as it is nowadays, and he fights tears valiantly. 

“I promise,” he murmurs. 

“Good. That makes me feel better. I love you.”

Goro says that every other sentence now. When he’s aware enough, when he’s not throwing up or coughing or asleep. He always says it. Like even he’s convinced he’s going to drop dead any second. 

Akira is so tired. Goro is in pain. He’s in agony, and he’s just getting worse every single day. At this point the doctors are talking about quality of life and last ditch efforts and Goro is getting more and more run down. 

Akira has never believed in miracles. Goro coming into his life was fate, it was something wonderful and beautiful as two stars colliding. But Akira wouldn’t call it a miracle. And he thinks the miracle they need to pull Goro out of this sickness, out of this plague that clings to his entire body...he thinks it’s impossible. The first time was different. But it came back, and even if they get rid of it, even if Goro gets better again. What if it comes back again? Even if it doesn’t, Goro isn’t immortal and Akira can’t put off his death forever, unless. Unless. 

Akira feels like a monster when he bites Goro in his sleep. When he drips his own still blood into Goro’s mouth and waits for him to swallow. 

That’s all it is. So easy. And Goro doesn’t look better, at all. He looks completely dead, because he is now. He’s undead, just like Akira. But he won’t die now. 

So why does it feel like Akira did the wrong thing? Why does he feel so guilty?

The game doesn’t end. 

Goro blinks his eyes open the next morning, and sighs in audible relief as he stretches out. 

“See, Akira?” he slurs, yawning. “I feel better already, my dear heart.”

Akira watches as he sits up. As he starts to get up, slowly. Then quickly, eyes narrowing in confusion as he paces around the room a few times. 

“Akira?” His eyes pierce into his in the dark, seeing him anyway. “ _ Why _ do I feel better? How am I better?”

Akira turns the lights on, and Goro stumbles back onto their bed. 

“I’m sorry,” Akira says. 

“No you aren’t,” Goro mutters. “That’s...I’m leaving.”

He stands up again, going for the door. Akira stands in his way, facing off against the fury and confusion and hurt in his eyes. 

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know!” Goro shoves him aside. “But I’m leaving  _ you _ .”

“Don’t. You can’t, not like this. You won’t be able to settle without knowing--”

“I just need a day. Please just...go do something else. Leave me alone.” 

“I’ll go out,” Akira offers quietly. 

“Please do.”

Akira nods, feeling a sinking feeling of dread and guilt and regret begin to tear him open. 

“Akira?” 

Goro still says his name like he loves it, like he loves him. 

“Yes?”

“I love you,” Goro says. “I love you so,  _ so _ much. With everything I am, I love you. I just need a day.”

“I love you too. I’ve...been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.” 

Goro opens the door for him and smiles a little. 

“Believe me, so have I. That’s not changing.” 

Akira goes to the bluffs. He stays there and regrets not thinking things through before he made a decision like that. Goro is stronger than that, he beat it once and Akira should’ve had faith in him to do it again rather than do the one thing he asked Akira not to. He wasn’t putting faith in a miracle, he...he was putting his faith in Goro and he got scared and stopped believing in him somewhere along the line. He knows that’s his mistake, he knows he’s taken something precious away from Goro and. 

He needs to really apologize, he needs to promise to find Goro an out. He doesn’t know if there’s a way to go back, to revert it. But if there is, he’s going to find it. And he’s not going to stop looking until he finds it. 

He needs to right things again. 

He stays away all day though, coming back only when he’s sure he’s given Goro the most amount of time he can. He promised Goro a day, and he does his best to give him that. 

The second he walks in the door he smells blood. It’s coming from the main room, and for a long moment he’s sure he’s going to round the corner and Goro will have some poor animal or person under his teeth. 

But when he peers into the room, it’s Goro on the ground surrounded by blood.  _ His  _ blood. Akira can smell it now that he’s closer. 

Their song is playing on the record, on autoplay. Akira picks up the note next to it numbly. It’s short. 

_ I’m sorry, Akira. I know you can’t understand how much my mortality means to me, but I couldn’t have ever been happy that way. I hope this hurts less than leading you on.  _

_ I love you, my heart. I loved you when you opened the door while I was in the rain and I still loved you when you turned me. I’m not doing this to hurt you, I’m doing this to save myself. I still don’t regret a moment with you. I would do it all again, if I had to. This is...my fault, not yours. I asked too much of you, I know.  _

_ I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you please I’m begging you don’t forget it. _

_ -forever yours, Goro _

And when Akira blinks to confirm what he’s read, he’s looking at Goro, the god. The note isn’t in his hand anymore. 

Tears immediately spill over his face, and he looks away. 

“I know I messed up,” Akira says. 

“You were just scared. It’s okay. He didn’t blame you and neither do I.”

“You should. It was  _ my  _ fault.” 

“ _ Akira _ .”

It sounds so much like the way that Goro said his name that Akira can’t help but turn. He lets Goro reach for him, beneath the layers of hurt that cover him. He breathes, even though he doesn’t have to. 

Goro is close, and he’s warm. They’re both warm. They’re alive. 

It shouldn’t matter what happened in a make believe life, but it matters to Akira so much. The edge is only taken off because Goro is okay. Still, Akira’s chest feels like a gaping hole that’s barely trying to pull itself together. 

“I’m okay,” Akira says. 

“Are you?”

“I will be. I need to win. You want me to win.”

“I do.” Goro scratches the skin near his horns fondly. “But you don’t have to keep going. I love you more than this silly game.”

“I love you too, but I’m not giving up now.”

“I know.” 

“I’m ready to go, Goro. Let’s go.”

Goro sighs, but he nods. 

“Be kind to yourself,” Goro tells him sharply. 

“I will.”

Goro kisses him with gentleness as his vision goes white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My life is more to me than all the wealth of Ilius.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	9. Checkmate/Check

Akira opens his eyes on a train. He blinks a few times as he looks around, waiting for his mind to come back to him. He inspects himself, the uniform he seems to be wearing and the bag hanging at his side. He opens the bag to look through it, finding books and pencils and his phone. 

He pulls that out, checking it. There’s an address in his notes when he unlocks it, and as he steps off the train he sees a weird app too. 

Across the way, a figure that looks suspiciously like the God who all but raised Akira is standing bathed in flames.

_ Kurusu Akira, welcome to the game.  _

It disappears, and Akira deletes the app, heading to the address and scanning the crowd for the familiar face he’s always looking for. His mind is beginning to give him the details. The assault charge, his awful parents, his probation. His life is rather ordinary, boring and unremarkable. But this one moment has sent him all the way here, and he can only guess it must mean Goro is here. 

But he doesn’t find Goro immediately, at least not at first.

He goes to the address and meets Sojiro, grinning at him with the knowledge Akira will grow on him as much as he’s denying it. The cafe, so much like the one last life...he wonders if Goro is here again and knows he isn’t. 

He cleans his living space and gathers his scattered memories to hold on to them tighter. The charges on him are false, and he has to behave. None of his friends have stuck with him after everything that happened, and in none of his memories can he find Goro. Which is fine, he knows Goro will bring them together at least once before things get bad. Akira will get a chance. 

The next morning he goes to see the school he’s going to attend, and still Goro is nowhere to be found. Akira considers trying to break into the office to find the registry and see if he can’t find Goro there, but decides against it. 

It’s only on the third day, eating breakfast, that he at least sees him. Akechi Goro is on the TV while Akira is eating, smiling wide and fake and voice pleasing as he talks about something or other that Akira can’t be bothered to pay attention to.

“Who’s that?” he asks Sojiro.

“Oh just some teen celebrity. He’s a Detective or something. Hurry up, you’re going to be late for school.”

Akira goes to school, reading extensively about who Akechi Goro is here on the train. A Detective, of course. That would make sense. He’s quite the sensation, so young and solving cases with such ease. Not to mention people eat up his whole personality, which has to be a fake because there’s no way his Goro would ever be so pleasant. 

He barely notices when it starts to rain and a girl who looks a lot like Ann pulls him under an awning. She smiles at him sweetly, all the way until a car pulls out and a guy who gives off just an awful aura offers her a ride. She doesn’t look all that pleased about accepting, which Akira files away carefully. 

Unmistakably Ryuji comes running over, yelling about Kamoshida getting away. He rants passionately about how bad of a man he is, and Akira takes everything he says and remembers it. Kamoshida is the volleyball coach, and a scummy one at that. He must be bothering Ann, then. Akira will have to find a way to disentangle her from that mess...

And then...things get weird. Akira is glad that of all people, he has Ryuji for this. Akira takes in the overload of new information as best as he can, but even for him it’s a lot. It’s a place called the Metaverse, and this specifically is a Palace. It’s taken the form of a castle due to Kamoshida’s own cognition of the school. He has a Persona, which resembles the figure he saw at the beginning of this life. In general everything has painstaking details attached to it, such that Akira notes he should compliment Goro on this when they’re together again. It’s very creative. And Akira especially likes the outfit he gave him.

He goes through the motions, what feels right for him to do, but generally wanders around most days getting roped into other things while he looks for Goro everywhere. 

He does what he can, where he can. He pulls Ann with all of his strength  _ away,  _ and sighs in relief when she goes willingly. And when he watches her friend,  _ Shiho _ , as Ann sobs…

He can’t look. 

It feels good to take Kamoshida down, he feels powerful and special and for once he feels like he’s doing the right thing again. He thinks, even though he hasn’t found Goro yet, that this is what Goro designed for him to be doing. 

At the TV station, Goro steps onto the stage and oh god is his husband just resplendent. Akira feels starved looking at him, having spent so long just staring through a TV screen and wondering just when he’d be able to pull Goro back into his orbit. 

He’s such a good actor up there too, feeding everyone exactly what they want to hear with a smile. It’s so fake, but it’s also impressive how much of a mask he’s able to maintain. He’s beautiful as always, his hair that length that leaves it brushing his shoulders and falling just slightly in his face. His hands are covered with gloves, but Akira wonders what they look like this life. If he’s a Detective, they’re probably smooth and perfect and Akira wants to kiss them.

But he can’t help himself. When he’s asked his opinion, he just has to contradict Goro. He can’t help but poke at their natures, trying to awaken the competitive beast that exists between them. 

But that’s all the better, because in return he can see Goro’s eyes spark all the way across the room.

Goro stops him before he leaves. Nothing so dramatic as calling out to him, grabbing his arm, or anything of the sort. 

“Excuse me?”

But still, just the sound of Goro’s voice makes Akira turn and stop entirely in his tracks. An irresistible pull. 

He waves Ryuji and Ann to go ahead, and smiles waiting for Goro to go on.

“I simply thought you were very...interesting.” Goro looks a bit to the left of his face as if to gather his thoughts. “I wanted to thank you for contradicting me. To paraphrase Hegel, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis...”

Whatever look Akira gives him makes him laugh. He dismisses it with a hand gesture, smiling a little less fakely. It’s short of real, but Akira can’t help but think he’s already started hammering at those barriers between them. 

“All I mean is our discussion was meaningful. Few people I surround myself with are willing to speak their minds as you did. I can understand where you’re coming from, that adults use the young while forcing them to simply do as they say. In these modern times...perhaps the Phantom Thieves are doing what’s right. Perhaps they are just, doing this out of a sense of justice and duty. But I think they’re just cowards.”

Akira grins at Goro, and gets a confused if genuine one in response. Goro always has a tongue for debate, and if they’re really going to be opposed in this life Akira is so looking forward to pushing back at him. 

“Really?” he prompts. “Why do you think that? I think they’re quite brave.”

He wants Goro to keep rambling at him like this. He wants to keep them both here as long as he can. 

“You really are quite...intriguing. I bet you’d make for a worthwhile debate partner. Let’s continue sharing our thoughts.”

“I’d love to.”

“That’s great news. I sense something in you that’s quite different from other people.”

Akira gets Goro’s number and a sweet farewell. Goro blushes when he calls him his given name, but doesn’t tell him not to. Well maybe he tries to, but he seems to give up halfway through the stutter and just leaves it be. 

Things continue this way. Akira leads several different lives within this one, keeping up with the Phantom Thieves and his school life and his social one all while trying to figure out what he’s supposed to save Goro from.

Akira pushes at his bonds carefully, developing his relationships and honing his skills and playing Leader to the Phantom Thieves as he manages their supplies and their training and their targets. It’s a multitasking nightmare, to manage everything as carefully as his life calls for him to. Most days Akira runs around, he drinks so much coffee he worries for his health and he goes to school reading a book and hardly watching where he’s going, he drags a confidant around somewhere after he’s done at school, and heads out in the night to do more unsavory things. He learns his way around the model weapons in Untouchables, and some real ones. He works part time in a bar, which gives Morgana a heart attack. He calls his teacher, the  _ maid,  _ in to do things for him and help her through her own struggles. He makes infiltration tools at his desk, or stays up late to write up plans, or any number of things that always seem like they need to get done. 

But he can do it. 

Because ever so rarely, Goro has time for him. 

The first time they play chess, Goro gets pissed. He hides it well with a tight smile, but Akira can tell. He’s frustrated that Akira can read him, that Akira beats him so easily. He has no idea that Akira knows his tactics, and can practically see the moves before they come. 

“Good game,” Goro praises. 

There’s nothing warm in his voice, just forced politeness. 

Akira knows Goro would hate it, would hate being beat at a game he proposed. Maybe he should’ve held back a little, but he thinks Goro would’ve been able to tell and that would’ve set him off even more. Goro is not kind in this life, Akira can see it in the steel of his eyes that he clearly has to smooth over when he interacts with people. There is something dangerous and hidden in that, and Akira can only quietly note it to himself for now. 

“It was close,” Akira says calmly. 

“Yes. I’m surprised you snuck that last play by me so easily.” 

“You’re not  _ that  _ hard to read,” he dismisses. 

“You are an enigma, Kurusu.” 

“ _ Akira _ ,” he insists, again. 

“Yes, I know your first name, Kurusu. We’ve been over this.” Goro grins pleasantly at him. “It’s nice of you to diligently remind me, but my memory is quite good. It’s necessary with my work.”

“Come on, it feels weird to call you Goro when you won’t call me Akira,” he complains. 

“Then call me Akechi. That’s what everyone else calls me.” 

“Am I everyone else?”

Goro looks him, up and down. He hums and sips his coffee. 

“No, you’re considerably worse than everyone else I’m afraid.” 

Goro’s tone remains pleasant, although the words themselves dig under Akira’s skin. This is the most competitive Goro has been in a life, and it’s only offset because at least he isn’t keeping up that fake personality with him. Still…

“You hang out with me anyway,” Akira points out. 

“Yes,” Goro sighs. “I do wonder why I keep doing that. I should really head out, though. It’s getting late.” 

“But you’ll be back?”

Goro averts his eyes. 

“More than likely.” 

The first time they play billiards, Goro also gets angry again. He smooths it over with a forced smile and simply congratulates Akira on his win, and compliments his play style. He seems to get worked up easily every time Akira is better than him at something. 

Akira points out if he weren’t using his non dominant hand, maybe he would’ve won. He gets a dangerous grin back, lacking the usual polite overtone. 

They go out, and Akira disguises him as an excuse to touch his hair again. It’s softer than it usually is, like he gives it extra care. Goro looks somehow better than ever with Akira’s glasses set over his nose carefully. 

And then they go...out, Akira thought. He assumed, which he should really learn to stop doing when it comes to Goro. But still, Goro brings him to a very nice place, where the atmosphere is romantic and quiet. There’s good music and Goro orders things for them and they chat casually. Akira invites him back to Leblanc, but at the end when Akira tries to at least take his hand he only gets a confused glance in response. 

Of course. He’s going to be stubborn this time, because why wouldn’t he be? This Goro is stubborn and cold, and Akira adores him every bit as much as every Goro he gets to know. 

Goro starts coming to Leblanc on the regular, and Akira will make him coffee he starts out paying Sojiro directly for but ends up being on the house after the first few times. Sojiro is clearly fond of both of them, even if he won’t admit it. 

Sometimes Goro goes even if Akira isn’t there, but usually he’ll ask after him even if he isn’t around. Sojiro takes care of him anyway, but it’s clear Goro prefers him. That makes Akira happy.

They keep playing chess, and Goro catches on quickly to his normal tricks. They start trading victories rather than Akira dominating him. It makes Goro much more agreeable to playing with him. 

They’ve been at it now for a good couple of minutes, flying through the first few moves with ease. It’s like clockwork for the first minute. They haven’t spoken, but now that things are starting to slow down, Akira wants to listen to Goro talk. Sometimes he gives away what he’s thinking when he starts to rant on. Akira isn’t doing so well, so he needs the advantage. 

Goro takes one of Akira's knights off the chess board and sets it neatly aside. 

"Why don't we have a debate?" Akira asks, because he's losing. 

Goro looks at him, like he knows exactly what Akira is trying to do. But he hums, and then nods slowly. 

"Sure. How about the ethics of lying? Is lying good or bad?"

"Oh it's not so black and white like that," Akira argues immediately, moving his rook right into line for Goro's king, hoping he won't notice if Akira is talking. "Check."

Goro moves his king out of the way. Obviously. Akira should’ve known that, and he kind of did. 

"Isn't it? I thought you'd be vehemently against it, with your track record."

"Oh please, anyone would realize there's exceptions, and it's a complicated topic."

"Perhaps we shouldn't debate it then," Goro amends. "We can simply discuss our beliefs, if you want."

"I'd like that." Akira grins at him and moves his queen in line for Goro's king, again. "Check."

He sees the way the word grates on Goro, his face twitching in displeasure. 

"Cut that out," Goro growls, moving his king away again. "Well, I suppose I'll start. Immanuel Kant is talked about too much, and I think he's so wrong it's laughable."

"Kant is a cunt," Akira agrees. "There are many situations where lying is necessary. Where it could  _ directly  _ save a life or help someone. Where telling the truth would physically hurt someone, and that is far more morally wrong than lying. "

Not to mention how much Akira enjoys lying. He’d consider it an underappreciated art. He likes weaving stories with his words, even if they’re false. 

"I agree. Let's at least agree that lying is never always wrong or always right. Sometimes telling the truth is better for both parties as well. It's an equal exchange."

Akira hums and finally moves a piece, after a little bit of thought. For now it’s supposed to come across as inconsequential, although Goro sees what he's doing and immediately moves to capture the piece, stopping the pawn before it gets anywhere near the other side of the board. 

"I like Thomas Aquinas' ideas,” Akira sighs. “That lies told to do harm are the only ones that should be considered sins, and therefore unforgivable. But lies told in fun, or helpful ones are just fine. That's about my stance on things too."

Akira has done considerable research about lots of things just to keep up with Goro in this life. Some things he knew, but a lot of things he had to put effort into knowing just for the occasional debates. 

Of course it’s worth it, when they get to talk like equals in this atmosphere. 

Akira takes a move to set up another check. 

"That's broad," Goro points out, going for the attack. "What counts where? Lies of omission, mental reservations, mutual deception, liars told to liars, white lies, storytelling lies. There's far too much to not go into more than that."

Akira takes one of Goro’s knights, getting in line for checkmate again. 

"Check," he murmurs. "Yes, I understand there's a lot more to lies than what anyone would see at first glance. But I believe every category could be easily slotted into the three basic ideas there."

"You just want things to fit neatly," Goro argues, taking the piece threatening his king.

How ironic, that Goro is harping on him for wanting things to be orderly. But when it works, it works. Chaos for the sake of chaos will only ever bring about ruin, so categorizing things as needed is the only way to keep things working properly. 

"Maybe," Akira agrees with a smile, taking the last of Goro's rooks. "But hey, I do believe that, genuinely. What do  _ you  _ think?"

"Well, consequentialists are interesting. The idea that lies should be assessed on the consequences of them. Whether or not those results are good or bad then judge the lie that brought them about."

"But it's a flawed theory, no?" Akira furrows his brow. “I mean…”

Goro snatches up Akira's queen with his own, and grins when Akira glares at him. 

"It is."

"Consequences are too hard to predict," Akira sighs. "And measuring good and bad has never been easy. Trying to make things black and white is confusing, most things are some shade of grey. Things get too mixed up. That can't be the theory you believe in."

"It isn't."

Akira gives him a frustrated glance, then shifts his rook. 

"Check," he mutters. "What about Sissela Bok?"

It’s like pulling teeth with Goro sometimes, trying to get him to show him anything that’s real. Anything that isn’t something thinly veiled behind a pleasantry or a lie. These debates are the easiest way to get truths, and it’s still tedious and difficult. 

"The idea of the panel?" Goro asks. 

Akira nods, gesturing for him to continue. 

Goro moves his king away, then leans back. 

"Well I do think the idea of a jury of all those affected by the lie would be effective, if unrealistic. Even the idea of asking your friends and family, outsiders, that's not realistic in a real world scenario. It would be the ideal, though."

“Then that’s what you believe...” Akira looks at him, pleased.

A new morsel of information to stow away in his mind. 

Akira looks down at the board and moves a piece. A set up for the next move, something to hopefully get Goro to fall into checkmate. Goro examines the board with a sharp eye, and the glint in his eye tells Akira the game is over. 

“It is. I think that an individual can’t determine for themself if a lie they tell is good or bad. It should be decided by those it affects, if at all possible. It just very rarely is.” Goro moves his queen across the board to take Akira’s king. “Check and mate, Akira.”

“Good game,” Akira praises. “And good discussion. You’re the best at this stuff, Goro.”

Akira wants to kiss him. He wonders what would happen, if he just grabbed Goro’s collar and dragged him forward. He’d probably get punched, but it’s a nice thought. 

“Of course. I’m always happy to debate you, Kurusu.”

Goro’s laugh almost sounds real when Akira’s smile dips into a scowl. 

Akira keeps spending time with Goro. It doesn’t matter what else he has planned, if Goro is free, Akira just makes himself free. It’s not often that Goro spares time for him though, it doesn’t seem like he has much to spare in the first place. 

Still, they keep going out to all these nice places where they fight over who pays, and Goro loses more and more of his fake smile the more time they spend together. There are some walls that refuse to drop, but Akira will take what he can get. 

They go to an arcade of all things and Goro...is remarkably good at the shooting game. Unnaturally good, despite denying ever having played the game before. 

It’s a detail that doesn’t escape Akira for even a second. Goro doesn’t put in these details without reason. He files it away for later and jokes casually with Goro about it instead. Things are starting to add up, but he still needs more. 

When they go to the bathhouse Akira has to exercise a godly amount of self control. Which is just ridiculous, because he’s not the God of Control in this relationship. 

He’s supposed to be spontaneous and let Goro rein him in if that’s what the situation calls for. But the last time he got to go off the rails was when they were hitmen, and Akira doesn’t think this Goro will let him kill anyone and get away with it. He doesn’t think he  _ should  _ kill anyone anyway. He’s playing the vigilante here, and Goro is diligently chasing after him. 

At least, that’s what Goro would have him believe. And Akira does, for now. 

But getting to see Goro’s body laid out in the water as he spills his guts makes Akira fall for his husband in a way he never has before. It’s new, every time. Akira finds a part of a Goro who is human and he holds it close to his heart and falls in love with it. 

This time, it’s a little different. Goro is different. Akira feels like he’s watching him get further and further away even as they get closer. Like Goro is walking far ahead of him, heading towards something Akira can’t begin to see. 

Even when Goro says they’re the same, says he feels better. It’s a lie. It’s a lie that doesn’t escape Akira, doesn’t fool him for even a moment. 

Akira just smiles gently at him and agrees.

And by then he knows. He gathers his team and he tells them exactly what he knows, what he’s figured out. Morgana and Makoto grimly share his fears. And he promises to handle it. 

And he goes straight to Goro. 

Leblanc is closed, but Goro has stayed. Sojiro easily left them alone when Akira asked him so seriously, and Morgana is with Futaba. 

“Let’s go upstairs,” Akira offers. 

“Why?” Goro asks carefully. 

“Because Futaba has the cafe bugged, but she won’t be able to hear us in the attic,” he murmurs, grinning. 

Goro blinks at him, then nods and stands. They go up into the attic, Goro sitting on the couch while Akira just leans against the railing by the stairs. He doesn’t want Goro to be able to make a quick escape, so this is the best position for him. 

Goro crosses his legs, watching him with something far too sharp. Something dark lives behind those eyes, and Akira has finally gotten close enough to know what. 

“Black Mask, huh?” Akira says, as Goro’s eyes widen and he tenses up. “Was that a nickname, or something Shido came up with for you?”

Goro stands up, but seems to realize that Akira is blocking his escape route. His eyes flick towards the window, clearly judging the distance and height and how fast he can move. Goro looks back at him, then slowly sits down again. 

“It was my idea,” Goro says. “Do you know everything, then?”

“Most things.” 

“Is it difficult, Kurusu?” Goro asks lightly. 

“Is  _ what  _ difficult?” he grits out. 

“Being the Leader of the Phantom Thieves on top of your criminal record. Not to mention how hard you tried to befriend a murderer. I’d imagine it’s very stressful.”

“It’s not too bad,” Akira dismisses. “So you know everything too?” 

“Most things,” Goro mocks. 

“An impasse,” he sighs. 

“A stalemate for now, I suppose. We’re both stuck in check.” Goro looks up at the ceiling and his lips tug down in annoyance. “I assume if I try to bring you down, you’ll simply retaliate. You must have solid evidence if you’re confronting me, and even if I take you down right now your friends will be ready to expose me once the dust settles.”

“Obviously. I’m not stupid.” 

Goro glares at him, then stands up. He walks towards the stairs, and Akira lets him. He does pause though, for a moment. 

“It’s my move,” Goro claims. “Please try to keep up,  _ Kurusu.” _

Akira turns a little to smirk at him. 

“Will do, Detective.” 

Goro blackmails them. He lays out what he has and smiles falsely as he tells them exactly what they’re going to do for him. He didn’t at all have to do things this way when he easily could've just told Akira directly what he wanted. But he seems to like telling them all how careless they were. 

It’s a little hot, but mostly infuriating. 

And he’s strong. Really, really strong. Of course Goro is strong, but it’s staggering even to him here. Their difference in power is obvious, and Goro looks at him like he knows he realizes that. 

And by now they know exactly what his plan is. Akira has had to listen to the phone conversations all in Futaba’s room with everyone, pretending he’s composed as he listens to the way Goro talks about him. Say that he’s going to kill him. 

They found a way to work around it, they found a way they could trick him. It would require Akira to say just the right things, to get Sae on their side, and a little maneuvering on Futaba’s part. But it wouldn’t be  _ difficult  _ to trick Goro. And Akira just smiles at his team and refuses. 

“What do you mean no?! What the fuck, man!” Ryuji grabs his arm and squeezes tight. “You can’t just go and die!”

“Ryuji is right, Akira. You can’t just walk in there knowing you’ll die,” Makoto agrees, concern lacing her features. 

“I understand being our fearless Leader here,” Yusuke points out. “However, it would be foolish to spring a trap without a plan.”

“The plan will work,” Morgana insists. “Why don’t you want to do it?”

“Akira, don’t be stupid. We found a work around, just take it,” Futaba argues. 

“I’m inclined to agree with everyone. I’m unsure what we would do without you,” Haru murmurs. 

“I don’t want to lose you. If you’re doing this because you want...I can’t even say it, I’m sorry,” Ann says quietly. 

“Ann,” he sighs. “Everyone, come on. I just have another plan, that’s all. Trust me on this.”

Miraculously, they do. 

And somewhere along the line in there, Goro brings him out and tells him to leave the team and join him. Finish out Goro’s plan together, as a unit. They could do anything together, and Akira knows he’s right. But he learned his lesson already. Teaming up with Goro and helping him be self destructive doesn’t help him. It won’t save him in the end. It’ll only end badly for both of them. He knows that, but it doesn’t make the answer any easier. 

Even if Akira wants to say yes, just to worm his way the rest of the way into Goro’s life, he refuses with gritted teeth. He refuses for himself, for Goro, and for the team that’s counting on him. 

And then they fight. They can’t kill one another, not like this, but Goro sure seems like he’s trying. He throws everything he has at Akira so Akira doesn’t hold back either. Goro even goes as far to bring out his second Persona, Loki. It makes Akira want to cry and laugh and kiss him all in one. 

Goro’s Persona, a God of chaos. Akira bites his lip to hold in the comment and jumps back into the fray. 

He uses all of his knowledge about Goro, the one he loves through all lifetimes, even this one. He knows how Goro fights, and here he doesn’t act too much differently. Their strength may differ, but Akira has the upper hand when it comes to strategy and knowledge. He always has an upper hand in their encounters, because he  _ knows  _ Goro. Innately, in any form he takes. 

Of course like that, Akira would win.

Goro looks bitter, he looks angry, and he looks like he’s about five seconds away from deciding he’s going to move his plan up to now and murder him in the middle of Mementos. 

Goro mutters that he didn’t expect it instead, and he wants to fight more but knows they can’t. He’s quiet, resigned, and is forcing a smile. 

Akira wants to tell him that in any other situation, if Goro had his memories, he would win. 

But he doesn’t, and they just leave Mementos together.

“Once again, I’ve learned something new about you. You just don’t end, do you?”

Goro doesn’t sound particularly happy about the fact. Actually, he sounds fairly angry about it. 

Akira stands across from Goro and shoves his hands in his pockets. He feels ripped open and on display for Goro to view at his leisure. Is that what it feels like to be human? 

He hates it.

“Did you expect any less?”

“Of course not. As the allies we are, fighting alongside one another, I’ve always seen your strength is undeniable, and rather reassuring. In a pinch, it’s easy to rely on you.”

“Mm, but I’d say the same about you.”

And it’s true. For as strong as Akira is, Goro is just as strong. Not as refined, not as used to fighting with others maybe. But in terms of raw strength, Goro has him beat. He knows that, and still...

“Is that so?” Goro’s face has this look that Akira has come to recognize as bitter regret. “Well, that would please me greatly. I’m sorry I asked you to indulge me, but...I do, feel a bit better now that is.”

He’s lying. Straight through his teeth, every word is a complete lie. Akira doesn’t know why Goro is still lying, he’s still holding back. He still won’t let Akira see everything. 

Akira clenches his fists in his pockets and pretends he’s fooled. 

“I’m glad you got that much out of it.”

“If we fought to the end, do you think you would’ve won?” Goro asks quietly. “Truly, Akira. Don’t hold back the truth on me now.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Akira grins at him. “And I wouldn’t lose. I don’t lose, you see.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.”

It seems even now, Goro has a sense for him. Remembers without remembering. 

Akira starts to pull his thoughts together to tell Goro he loves him before he’s too late. He has to, even though Goro is looking at him like that. It’s still  _ Goro,  _ Akira has to be able to do something. Anything. 

Maybe he’ll ask if Goro won’t come back to Leblanc so Akira can dig out the pan flute he bought that’s somewhere in his desk and play their song. Make him remember, make him feel. Something to convince Goro not to do what he’s going to do.

“I’m going to be entirely honest with you,” Goro says, dragging Akira from his thoughts. “I hate you.”

Akira pulls his hands from his pockets and straightens up. He has to harden his expression in an attempt not to betray how hurt that’s made him. 

Oh to hear those words from his husband when he’s trying to save him is tearing him apart.He feels raw. 

“So many things irritate me about you. Your deft handling of your unfortunate circumstances, your uniqueness.” Goro glares harder at him. “The way you always seem to have me beat, how you insist you know me. It’s infuriating because it’s true, you seem to know me far too well despite my best efforts. But that’s exactly why you’re the one person I refuse to lose to.”

Akira looks at the hostility in Goro. He knows that right here and now there’s not a lot he can do to reach him. Even if he aches to take him, shake him, and scream in his face about who they are and ask where he gets off hurting Akira like this. Demand that he apologizes, that he remembers already and stops doing this to him. 

“I refuse to lose to you,” Akira tells him.

He does. He’s going to win. He’s going to save Goro, whatever that may take. And he’s going to do it this life in which Goro is already so far gone because he doesn’t think Goro expects him to win here. Or maybe he does. Akira has long since stopped being able to see what Goro is trying to do. 

“You really are—“ Goro seems genuinely surprised, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “No, never mind. I’ll let you have this win today...but next time, I will be victorious. Let this be my proof.”

Goro, God of Order and Law, throws his glove at Akira. He catches it, easily. He inspects his bare hand, although he’s seen it before it feels different now. He sees now that his hand is more calloused than he expected. Indicative of harder work than a Detective. 

Akira clutches the glove to his chest with shaky hands.

“There’s a tradition—“

“In the West, yes,” Akira interrupts him. “To throw one’s glove at their opponent when demanding a duel. I’m familiar. I accept the glove, Goro”

Akira calmly puts the glove into his pocket and feels like somehow, this is the best he can do right now.

“You never fail to surprise me,” Goro says, and it could be fondness or hatred in his voice Akira isn’t sure. “Make certain you never forget...I am the one who will defeat you, Kurusu. Ah, look at the time. Let’s call it a day.”

Akira let’s Goro go. He doesn’t chase, because he knows that will only make Goro run faster away. 

Goro is too far out of his reach and has been from the beginning. 

He needs to let things play out and see if he can’t reason with Goro when things are less tangled and complicated. 

Surely, after everything they’ve been through, some part of Goro will listen to his own husband. Even if he doesn’t know.

Akira has a plan, and either it works or he dies in the interrogation room. Either way, they won’t be in this stalemate anymore. It’s Akira’s turn, after all. 

Goro betrays them, just as Akira knew he would. 

So Akira goes, he goes into custody with gritted teeth and tries not to snap too hard at anyone. He behaves, he keeps his mouth shut and he gives Sae what he can manage to give her, and he waits for Goro. 

It’s not too long, Akira is only just starting to get worried when the door opens and Goro steps inside. He closes it with gentleness, then his hand moves and he shoots the guard. 

Akira feels his entire body tense. 

“You knew this would happen,” Goro accuses him. 

“I did,” he answers quietly. 

“Then what the hell are you doing here? Out with it already, what’s your master plan? At this point I don’t know if I care what your little friends try to do, I’m sure Shido won’t let me go under. I’m so close to my goal, I don’t think you can touch me anymore.”

Akira smiles at him, although he still feels a little woozy from the drugs. 

“Sit. Put the gun down. Let’s have a debate,” Akira says. 

“About what? For fucks sake you dumb piece of shit I’m going to kill you!” 

“You’re  _ supposed  _ to kill me,” Akira corrects. “And we’re going to debate if you’re actually going to do it. Sit down.” 

Against all odds, Goro sits. He puts the gun down, but not on the table. It goes back at Goro’s hip, as he’s watched carefully for any movement. As if he’s planning on overpowering Goro and shooting him. 

Goro settles in the chair Sae occupied not too long ago, but he looks nothing like she did sitting there. He looks angry, he looks downright murderous, and like he won’t be much partner for debate in this state. He looks crazed, impatient, and already annoyed with Akira. 

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Goro deadpans. 

“First, tell me why you’re doing this. I should know your reasoning before I argue against it.” 

“I work for Shido as a hitman--”

“I know, you don’t have to explain that part. I know he’s your father too, and that he asked you to kill me. He just never explained why, or even why it had to be  _ you _ .”

Goro pulls his gun and points it at Akira’s forehead. For a few breaths, they face off like that. Goro’s eyes are steel, and his hand is steady in its aim. 

Eventually, Goro drops his hand down back to the table, still loosely holding the gun. 

“Don’t interrupt me,” he requests, exhaustion coloring his words. 

“The less you have to explain, the better,” Akira dismisses. 

“You’re a threat to him. Something for society to believe in. Mostly, I think the bastard is scared. After all, it’s only natural you’d go after him eventually. Getting rid of all of you is preferable, but it doesn’t matter. He asked me to identify the leader, specifically.” Goro fiddles with his gun, flicking the safety on and off. “I don’t know why he’s making me do it. It’s the least suspicious in a way, to have me here right now. But Shido has a lot of people who would be even less suspicious, or more suited for the job. I think...he’s testing me. I don’t know for sure.”

Akira looks at Goro, his husband. His rival, here. 

He looks nervous, unsure. He was running on adrenaline and Akira made him stop, and it’s starting to fade from him. But he’s angry, this Goro is not kind. He’s been wronged, and he clearly didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he signed up for this. 

Akira thinks Goro might  _ want  _ to kill him. 

“So you’re doing this for Shido?” Akira confirms. 

“I suppose, at face value I am. In the end this is all to bring him down, so it won’t be soon enough.”

“But right now, shooting me in this room is what Shido wants and you’re doing it.” 

“Yes,” Goro grits out. 

“I see.” Akira nods. “Alright then. Do it.” 

“What?” 

“Shoot me, Goro.”

Goro cocks the gun and aims again. His finger twitches on the trigger, but he doesn’t pull it. There is a barely there tremble in his grip. 

“What the fuck,” Goro spits. “You always fucking do this to me.” 

“Shido fucked you over, right? You’ve done all of this for him, and now you have to kill me. So do it already. Pull the trigger.” 

Goro is still pointing the gun at him, but it’s not even aimed fatally anymore. Akira hasn’t moved, but Goro’s hand is really shaking now. 

“Fuck you,” he growls. 

“I’m telling you it’s okay,” Akira says, calm. “You convinced me with solid reasoning that you have to do this for Shido. It was a good debate. You can shoot now.”

“Stop saying I’m doing it for him!” Goro throws the gun to the side and slams his hands on the table between them. “This is all to take him down!”

“That still counts as for him, Goro,” Akira murmurs. 

“Why...why do you always come in and ruin everything?” Goro’s fists clench on the table. 

“It’s what I do. Are you going to do it, Goro? If you do it for yourself and only yourself, then it’s okay. If this is what you want to do, then you should get it over with. But I swear if any inch of you only pulls a trigger to be his weapon, I will never forgive you.” 

Goro lunges across the table, grabbing at his clothes to shake him back and forth. Akira only brings his hands up to place over Goro’s. 

“Why do you care?!” he demands. “Why are you like this?! You just...I don’t understand you, Akira. You know I have to do this, or it’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I know people who can hide you. We can take down Shido together. We don’t have to be opposed. Not all the time at least, I’m not willing to give up our chess matches.” 

Goro looks tired. He glances again, at the gun he’s discarded in the corner of the room. But then he looks at Akira, and he doesn’t look back. 

They both have to pretend to be dead. Two ghosts that move around one another’s lives, intertwined but still too separate. Goro pushes him away more than he ever has. 

It hurts, in a way Akira has never hurt before. The game doesn’t end, because of course it wouldn’t. 

Akira may not have failed yet, but he knows he’s far from victory. 

They infiltrate Shido’s Palace quietly. The ship makes Akira sick, and Goro doesn’t say much of anything nowadays. He tells them what he knows, succinctly, and he fights. And that’s all he does. 

Until the engine room, until they’re so close and yet so far. In high spirits, with their guards down. That’s when the cognition faces them. 

It talks over Akira no matter what he says, until it’s clear words won’t be getting them anywhere. So they fight it instead, even though it just keeps going. 

The fight feels like it goes on forever. Wears them down, down, down. Akira is desperate, searching for something to help them. 

And then...Goro saves them. 

And then there’s a door between them and Goro is begging him to carry out his revenge and the last words Akira manages to him are, “I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you. I’ll hold onto your glove.”

And the last words from Goro on the other side are, “You really are...”

And then nothing.

Akira closes his eyes and holds onto hope because the game doesn’t end. It’s the only hope he can manage. 

He doesn’t remind himself Goro has died without the game ending before. 

Akira saves the world from a God of Control and laughs just a little over the irony. This one is nothing like Goro, but the humor at Goro’s expense still makes him smile fondly. 

And then...he’s back. There’s all this time stuff with Akira’s therapist, and Goro is back but he’s...he’s different. Not that Akira didn’t know he wasn’t a nice person, didn’t know he has this chill about him, but still this is different even compared to what Akira thought. 

He doesn’t talk about the engine room, just how to get them out of this. They go through the Palace together and no matter how many times Akira tries to tell him how he feels, Goro shuts him down. Goro doesn’t want to talk, he just wants to fight. It’s the same as he was in Shido’s Palace, but somehow worse. Worse, because Goro is back and Akira wants to be happy, but he knows it’s not going to last. 

And then, Maruki gives him the option. Akira sits in that booth across from him and listens to him talk. Akira just has to...to sit back and let it happen. And Goro won’t go back to the engine room. His mind is going so fast he can’t keep up, because he can’t make a mistake again. He can’t be the reason things go wrong all over again. Does he take it? What is he supposed to do?

“Akira, tell me if you had to choose between me or defeating Maruki, you’re going to defeat Maruki,” Goro says, sharp. “Then we don’t have to have this debate.”

Akira looks at him, and he can’t muster the strength to comfort him. He’s exhausted, he’s frustrated. This infiltration hasn’t been easy, and Goro hasn’t made it easier. He is trying to measure himself up against the world, as if anything in the world could measure up to him. 

“I’d choose you.”

“I think that’s what I expected you to say,” Goro sighs.

“If I have another chance to save you—“

“I told you already that—“

“Let’s start the debate then. Fine, make your case. Tell me why you should die!” Akira bursts. 

He can’t help it. He’s angry, he’s spilling over at every seam and he’s sick of keeping it all under wraps. He’s sick of sitting back and watching Goro die over and over, just barely out of his reach. In a car he doesn’t see coming, felled by his own hands as not to prolong an inevitable fate, in a war, in their own bed by his hand so they’d go together, by shooting Akira in their own bed, by ending Akira before he could truly have a chance, by the world, by saving a mother he doesn’t truly have while Akira was oblivious to it, by his own hand...Akira can’t let the door close between them again. 

Not again. 

Goro sips his coffee until Akira stops panting. Somehow, Goro is calm and collected. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies. So Akira has to care for him. 

Goro folds his hands together in front of him and takes a deep breath in. 

“Alright. This isn’t some convoluted suicide attempt, trust me on that. It’s true that I don’t particularly want to die. It seems rather unpleasant, and with Shido out of the picture there’s no reason my life would be horrible at all. But trust me when I say I would rather die than live under the control of anyone else. My whole life I’ve been controlled, owned by everyone around me. I can’t spend the rest of my life that way. I’d rather fight and die to be free than die complacent.”

_ I’d rather die than live hollowly. _

If Akira tries to accept Maruki’s reality...will he one day wake to Goro’s life ended by his own hand again? 

Goro lays his palms flat on the table. He is not wavering. Akira is breaking apart. 

“You don’t get to tell me I can’t do that,” Goro points out quietly. “You don’t get to control me that way either. I told you you never could’ve saved me and that’s not your fault. I will hate you forever if you throw away our chance to escape this false reality.”

“You wouldn’t remember.”

Akira thinks they would all forget. He isn’t sure how it works, but maybe he could ask Maruki. Wish for it that way. He’s panicking, grasping at every straw within his reach because otherwise he’s going to drown in every emotion he’s feeling because god is he in over his head. 

Goro lets out a breath. It’s a little surprised, a little hurt. Akira wants to take it all back, but he doesn't. 

Akira still doesn’t know what  _ he  _ wants right now. 

“But you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t force me to accept something you knew I didn’t want under the guise that I wouldn’t know better once it was done.” Goro watches Akira, and he shakes his head when Akira tries to avert his eyes. “Don’t look away because I’m right. I know you feel like you make mistakes sometimes, and I don’t think I’ve been the best with you all the time. Not even most of the time. But listen to me when I say you’re...you’re a good person, Akira. I know you don’t mean that. Just tell me what you really think.”

Akira drinks his coffee passively. His hands are shaking, and he knows Goro can see it. 

He’s thinking too fast. He can’t catch up with his own mind right now, when he’s so used to waiting for his mind to catch up to him. 

What’s right here? What is Goro expecting of him? Where is the answer? How can Akira save Goro without trapping him? 

What is he supposed to do? 

“Breathe,” Goro reminds him. “It’s just me. I only want your truth.”

Akira holds his hands out, backs of his hands flat on the table. Goro slowly takes his glove soff. He picks at the tips of them until they slide all the way off. He flips his own hands so his palms are exposed, let’s Akira take his own to entangle their fingers. 

Akira squeezes and Goro squeezes back. 

“I’m just scared of losing you. You have no idea how much it destroyed me the first time.” Akira’s lip trembles, and he starts to cry quietly. “I mean I know you do, I know you know loss. But this is...it’s something else. The experience of trying to save you even when everyone insisted it wasn’t possible, and failing over and over. And when they were right all along, that you’d been out of my reach before I even met you. I feel like I reach for you over and over, try to save you in every way I can think to, and I just keep fucking it up. I feel so useless! I was starting to think saving you was just...impossible at all. But now I can actually do  _ something _ . I’m not powerless here.”

“And you really shouldn’t,” Goro reminds him.

Akira has had the power before, the decision before. 

He made the wrong choice then.

“I know. That’s what makes it feel so bad. That I have to be useless again, just watch you slip back out of my fingers even though you’re right in front of me now. You’re right here, I’m holding your hands, and if we go through with this I have to let you go all over again. It’s harder than anything I’ve ever had to do, Goro. Do you know how much that is to say?”

Goro doesn’t know, not this Goro. Akira feels like he’s been torn open. For good this time, his heart is bleeding and he doesn’t know if he can make it stop anymore. 

“It’s cruel,” Goro comments.

“It really fucking is.” Akira hangs his head and brings Goro’s hands to his mouth. “I’m just so desperate to be able to do something that I’m trying to convince you to settle into this reality. But I know you won’t, I know that’s not who you are. I mean would you really be you if you didn’t fight tooth and nail to do things however the hell you want?”

Akira kisses his knuckles, turns to kiss his palms, his wrists. Then he brings Goro’s hands up to rest over his face and closes his eyes so he can try to commit it to memory. 

He thinks this is right. It hurts so bad, and he thinks it’s right. 

Goro is letting him touch him like this. 

“This isn’t even your body,” Akira murmurs. 

It’s not right, and Akira knows. He saw glimpses of Goro, and this isn’t it. 

“No scars.”

“No scars,” Akira agrees. “No freckles, either. He got your hands a little wrong too. I...okay. I’m ready. Ask me again.”

“Akira. If it comes down to it, you—“

“I’ll take Maruki down, no matter what. I’ll get our reality back. I promise. I’ll do it for you.”

“Even if it costs me?”

Akira opens his eyes. He takes a painful breath, then another. He feels miserable. He feels like Goro has crawled inside his chest and curled up there. He’s probably going to die there. 

“Yeah,” Akira says shakily. “Even if...yes. But I need to ask you something in return. Let’s make a deal.”

“Depends. What’s the deal?”

Akira pulls his hands back. He blinks, sniffs. He still feels a little like crying. 

“If it comes down to it, I won’t choose you over the world. Know I want to. But I won’t. All I’m asking of you is...tonight.”

Goro tilts his head a little, and Akira laughs. The sound lacks real humor, but it makes Goro raise his eyebrow, and it’s cute and Akira missed him. If he’s about to lose again, he should make it count. 

“Stay for tonight,” he murmurs. “Please. We can just play chess if you want, I don’t care. I just need--”

Goro leans forward and kisses him. In the worst timing so far, Goro says against his lips, “I love you.”

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you,” Akira promises. “I never stopped, Goro.”

Akira turns down Maruki’s deal, heading with his team into the Palace the next day hand in hand with Goro. 

But no matter how hard he holds onto Goro, he’s still gone by the time they leave the Metaverse. 

And the game won’t _ fucking end _ .

It’s not the first time, but Akira is tired. It’s the second time he’s lost Goro now and he’s just...he can’t do it. Whatever Goro wants him to do, he can’t. He doesn’t have the energy. He had tried so hard this time, and still...maybe this game has been made impossible for him. 

One day he blinks and when he opens his eyes Goro is in front of him.

Akira is too happy that Goro is here and the game is over to do anything but bring him into his arms and squeeze as tight as he can. He’s so ready to tell Goro that’s it he has to be done he can’t do this anymore because Goro has genuinely made this too...

“Akira, the game wasn’t over.”

“But you—“

“I wasn’t dead yet. You should’ve known I wasn’t. You kept the glove, he promised you a rematch. Did he seem the type to go back on promises like that?”

Akira drops his face against Goro’s chest and breathes. 

His husband is here, making fun of him for losing the game. And Akira was just so sure the game would end and be over and it would be fine that he gave up and...

“A do over,” Akira says.

“No.”

“Yes. Put me back to right after. And take my memories.”

This is it. Akira finally understands. 

“I have two requests if we do that. Let’s make a deal for it.”

Akira holds his husband’s hand and nods, waiting.

“My first request is that this will be your final try,” Goro starts. “And the second is that I get to remember this time.”

After all these lives, Akira sees what Goro is trying to do for him. And he accepts it. 

Without another word, Akira shakes his hand. 

His world fades to white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Even a fool may be wise after the event."  
> -Homer, The Iliad


	10. Triumph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is proper to hear, no one, human or divine, will hear before you.”  
> -Homer, The Iliad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Rating: General   
> Nothing bad this time!

Goro opens his eyes and sits up. He flexes each of his limbs out to make sure they’re all still working, and he stands. 

They let him out of the rehab center he’s found himself in after a short checkup, and he checks all of his bank accounts to find them mostly intact. His main one is depleted slightly, but all his backup ones are fine. 

This Akechi Goro was smart, and he’s left Goro is a good place to find a cheap apartment and move into it. It’s not too close, because Goro isn’t about to make it easy for Akira after all this time. But he does walk past Akira’s train the day he’s set to go back home, just in case he was thinking about giving up. 

The Kurusu Akira who Goro pressed into this life probably wasn’t anywhere close to giving up, but sometimes motivation is good either way. 

He gets a part time job at a restaurant and spends most of his days trying to fight for his identity back. He doesn’t have many connections left, and the ones that do remain are more often than not dangerous anyway. Old ones that came through Shido and can no longer be trusted. Goro has to start over, completely. 

Nobody really seems to remember Akechi Goro, which is perfectly fine. That wasn’t Goro anyway. He changes his name. 

He spends a year saving up and gathering what records he could dig up of himself to be rid of and create himself a new identity with some help from Sae. She promises not to breathe a word of it to anyone, not even her sister. 

Goro eventually ends up going to school and studying psychology. It’s interesting to learn about humans from humans themselves. He finds he is actually learning things in his own reality, which he’ll have to look into more once the game is over. 

He hasn’t gone too far, but he’s not close by any means. He’s hoping that by inserting himself into this distance, it will lower the chances that anyone finds him. 

A few months into his first semester, he then proceeds to run smack into Makoto. It’s the first time he gets to see one of his realized creations up close. Most of the ones he creates are one off, not meant to be interacted with in any large way. Only some are based on people Goro actually knows, and now he gets to actually see his advisor, adapted into a human form. He realizes he got her hair a bit wrong, if she were human there’s really no way she would wear it that way. She’d probably get mad at him for that detail. 

She squints at him, like she doesn’t recognize him at first. Recognition sparks in her eyes, then, and she reaches for him. 

“Ake—“

He walks past her with a muttered sorry and glances back just to watch her fumble with her phone and start speaking frantically into it. 

He wonders how long it’ll take Akira to show up. He wonders where Akira even is right now. 

The answer is, by the end of Goro’s classes. He’s walking out of his Psych 101 class when Akira runs past in the perpendicular hallway. Their eyes lock for a second, and he hears sneakers squeak against the floors, and then a loud crash. 

Goro smiles to himself and turns to walk out of the building and to his car. He starts it and pulls out of the parking lot, watching in his rear view mirror. 

As he’s getting out of the lot he sees Akira run out of the doors with half his face a bright red Goro can see even from a distance.

He snorts and drives home. It’s an okay apartment, not the best but not bad at all. And it’s Goro’s home. 

He makes ramen for dinner and listens to his phone ring over and over. 

Futaba must’ve found him in the system and gotten his information. Which means she definitely has his address, so he’s surprised nobody has shown up at his door. He makes extra ramen, just in case. Maybe they’re just late. 

Sure enough, just as he’s sitting down to eat, there’s a single knock at his door. Only one, no banging or yelling. So it can only be one person, really. 

“Hello?” he calls.

He knows who it is. 

“Can you let me in?”

Akira sounds tired. He sounds like he’s not expecting Goro to let him in at all. Goro pours the leftovers into another bowl and sets it on the table across from his. And he unlocks and opens the door for Akira. 

“How can I help you?” he asks with a blank smile.

“Don’t play dumb with me Akechi.”

“There’s no Akechi who lives here,” Goro says. “Are you confused? Do I need to call the police?”

Akira glares at him, and Goro uses all of his godly control not to burst into laughter. He looks so angry, so unlike the way Akira usually looks at him. It really is funny, Akira is going to be mortified when he remembers this. 

“You changed your last name, whatever. I don’t remember what Futaba said it was.”

“Who’s Futaba? Did you escape from a psych ward? I’m studying psychology, maybe I can help you!”

Akira crosses his arms. 

At least he still has his backbone, a knack for not taking any of Goro’s bullshit. 

“Goro, let me in. Stop fucking with me. I know you remember, I can see it in your eyes. You’re just having fun trying to confuse me.”

Goro shrugs and steps back to let Akira in. He shuts and locks the door behind him, then gestures to his table.

“I made us ramen,” he says. “Did you miss your train?”

“Yes, I missed my train. Were you always this cheeky? Wait, don’t tell me. I know you were.”

“Did you expect a tearful reunion? Maybe if you hadn’t eaten dirt in the hallway and caught up to me I would’ve allowed it.”

“Futaba told me the wrong room!” Akira sits and shoves a bite of ramen in his mouth.

Goro sits and calmly starts to eat. He’d struggled with eating at first. He wasn’t used to needing to do it, so sometimes he would forget until the hunger started to hurt and he’d eat until he made himself sick. Human needs are a little fickle, but he’s adjusted. 

Now he eats a healthy three meals a day, which he’s gotten better at cooking. More complicated things he still can’t do, but he’s gotten really good at quality ramen. 

“Are you not going to talk to me?” Akira grumbles. “You disappeared! Everyone thought you were dead!”

Goro hums.

“You didn’t, though.”

“Well—“

“I showed up at the station so you’d see me. Didn’t you see?”

“That was real?!” Akira slams his palms on the table. “I thought you were a hallucination!”

“Of course not. I’m too pretty to be fake.” 

“I thought it was usually too pretty to be real?”

“It doesn’t really matter. Do I look fake to you?”

Akira reaches over the table and takes Goro’s bare hand. He looks at their hands, stroking across Goro’s knuckles with his thumb, the rest of his fingers brushing his palm. Akira’s face is full of only relief. 

It looks like he’s finally seeing the end of something that’s been tearing him apart, and when he looks back at Goro his eyes are fond. Familiar. 

Goro’s heart comes to beat in his throat, and he bites his lip to hold back everything that threatens to spill out. He has a part to play here, an Akechi Goro to be. He’s not supposed to drag Akira over the table and kiss him until he can’t breathe. 

“I guess not,” Akira murmurs. “I...”

“Finish eating,” Goro says, pulling his hand away. “We have a lot to talk about.”

But by the time Goro finishes with the dishes, Akira has fallen asleep on his couch. He’s curled up, with this slightly tensed look on his face even as he’s unconscious. 

Goro must’ve really worried him, then. 

Goro brings a pillow to cushion his head and tucks a blanket around him. He makes sure Akira is sleeping before he brushes his hair away from his face. 

Those long eyelashes flutter lightly in his sleep, but he doesn’t truly stir. Goro keeps combing through his hair, looking for any signs of wakefulness. 

Goro watches him for just a little bit, just until his expression smooths over. He gets to admire his husband in a way he hasn’t really gotten to do yet. When he doesn’t remember, he never appreciates these things properly. In so many lives, he takes Akira for granted. 

Just this once, it feels good to know. 

He kisses Akira’s forehead before he stands, heading into his own room to shower and collapse into bed. Sleeping was another thing that confused him a little at first, but he’s since gotten the hang of it. 

When he falls asleep he dreams only of his husband.

He wakes to a crash in the other room. He never knew one person could be so accident prone. 

Goro rubs his eyes and sits up. He’s growing very fond of sleeping, the gentle way of waking up still blurry and groggy. It’s so relaxing, and it feels so...romantic, somehow. He remembers how it felt when he was human, sleeping next to someone he loved and waking up with him each and every morning. He recalls there were a few times he made Akira sleep on the couch though, especially in their normal life. If Akira is good at anything, it’s getting on his nerves. 

He slides out of bed over the front, blanket still half over his shoulder when he opens his bedroom door. 

He just wants to make sure Akira didn’t break anything. Or hurt himself. But mostly Goro has a lot of expensive things and he’ll be mad if Akira broke something. Akira gets hurt all the time, Goro is sure he’d be fine. 

Akira is on the floor, halfway kneeling like he’s about to get up. There’s still floor burn on one side of his face from yesterday, but he seems fine and nothing is broken. 

“That wasn’t a dream,” Akira says.

“I’m going back to bed,” Goro yawns, turning back to shut his door.

He thinks he either didn’t close it hard enough or Akira stopped it. But he doesn’t care, he crawls back into bed and flops down, dragging his covers back over himself.

“Goro, don’t go back to sleep! Come on, I—“

“Shut up,” Goro groans, burrowing under his blankets more. “I’m sleepy!”

“Come on, get up. There’s so much I need to ask you. We still need to talk, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to fall asleep last night, please don’t go back to sleep.”

Akira moves the covers away from his face, and Goro blinks lazily up at him. He does seem rather frantic. Still, Goro sees his expression calm a little when he sees his face again. 

Goro grins at him and yawns again. 

“Come back to bed honey,” he says, patting the spot next to him. “It’s nice and warm for you and everything.”

“What?!”

Goro laughs into his pillow, unrestrained and happy. Akira is here, he really chased Goro all the way here on a phone call. 

“Stop! You’re acting like me and I don’t like it!”

“Taste of your own medicine,” Goro dismisses. “Go away, I wanna sleep more.”

“How can I convince you not to?”

What could Akechi Goro want from Kurusu Akira? Better yet, what can Goro ask for that would be a difficult or even impossible ask? 

“Give me my fucking glove back,” he mutters. “I’ve had an incomplete pair for like two years now, asshole.”

Surprisingly, Akira pulls a glove out of his pocket and drops it in front of him.

“Okay can I ask my questions now?”

“Do you just carry this around?” Goro asks, picking it up as he sits upright again. 

Trying it on only proves it’s the glove Akechi Goro threw at Akira so long ago. That is...sweet, and a little weird. Probably mostly weird, but Goro is the one who is finding it endearing so he’s probably weirder. 

“Yeah, my therapist already told me it’s not healthy you don’t have to.”

“Sit,” Goro commands. “Next to me is fine. I’m not getting out of bed.”

Akira sits next to him, kneeling on the bed on one leg with the other halfway off the side like he isn’t sure if he’s actually allowed.

“I need a goddamn drink,” Goro mutters, leaning against the wall behind him. “Hit me.”

“Like…”

“No, don’t actually hit me. Start asking your questions.” 

“How did you live?” Akira asks quietly. 

Goro shrugs. He doesn’t know. Akechi Goro didn’t know either. It’s not something that Goro put into the script, it’s just a development. 

Akechi Goro was never supposed to sacrifice himself, it was Akira’s influence that made him. 

“Woke up in rehab,” he offers. “But I have no idea.”

“Well that wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought maybe you planned...never mind. Why didn’t you reach out? Why didn’t you find me? Why...why? Why did I have to hear from Makoto that you were alive and going to her university?”

That one is more complicated. 

“I needed time, at first,” Goro starts, looking at the ceiling. “I wanted to start over and I couldn’t do that with any of you. I needed space. I showed up at the station to make sure I was still in your mind at least. I’ve never moved, I’ve never tried to hide otherwise. I always expected...wanted you to find me.”

Goro looks back to Akira for his reaction.

And Akira looks up at him through his eyelashes and Goro fights with himself. He can’t kiss Akira right now. He should. No, he shouldn’t. He won’t. 

He really wants to. He missed him.

“Are you safe?” Akira asks, voice finally softening. 

He doesn’t sound angry anymore, just worried. 

“I think so. Sae helped me out, and I’ve cut all other ties. Changed my name and all, stopped wearing makeup. I think it’s the best I can do.” 

“Good. Follow up question, are you happy?”

Of course Akira would care about that. Safe and alive is his bare minimum. 

“I’m managing,” Goro promises. 

“But are you  _ happy?  _ That’s all I wanted, when I rejected Maruki’s offer, for you to really just be happy.”

Goro sifts through his memory with care, hoping the silence doesn’t worry Akira too much. Back then, was Akechi Goro happy? 

He remembers holding Akira’s hands, feeling pulled in a million different directions, and just hoping they could both come out on the other side. 

Akechi Goro felt like a monster to Akira’s light, and he desperately wanted not to be anymore. 

“I was,” Goro answers, eventually. “That night, I was happy.”

Akira reaches for him, and then stops himself not even halfway through the motion. Goro wordlessly reaches back, and Akira takes his hands in his own. Kisses his knuckles, then turns them to kiss his palms, over each of his fingertips, the inside of his wrist. He covers every inch with his lips, and then brings Goro’s hands to cradle his face. He closes his eyes, and smiles softly. 

Goro’s heart is pounding. 

“You’re real,” Akira decides. 

“I am.” 

“Can we try again? We don’t have to, I really just want you back in my life however you’ll take me. But I’d really like to...pick up where we left off. Maybe start over.” 

Goro would do anything for Akira. 

He’s come up with this elaborate game for them to play just for Akira, after all. 

“Let’s start with today,” Goro offers. “I don’t have classes. I don’t have anything planned. Do you have to go back?” 

“My parents gave up and sent me back to Sojiro once I started complaining about how difficult it was to adjust back,” Akira admits sheepishly. 

“And today is Sunday,” Goro finishes. 

“No school for me either.” 

“Did you skip class to chase me, though?”

“Only last period with Kawakamki. She didn’t mind.” 

“You’re going to drive that poor woman nuts,” Goro sighs. “Alright, you can stay. What do you want to do?” 

“Jazz club?” 

“It’s still six in the morning,” he points out. 

“Okay. Breakfast, maybe we go make out in the attic, then jazz club?”

“Counter offer.” Goro pinches Akira’s cheek and pulls his hands away. “I’ll make us breakfast, we head over to show everyone I’m alive, we play some chess in Leblanc and I apologize to Sojiro for being a bad influence on you and see if he can be bribed to feed us,  _ if _ you beat me at chess we can make out in your filthy attic, and  _ then  _ we can head to the jazz club.”

“I have to admit that does sound much more coherent and good.”

So Goro drags himself out of bed to get dressed. 

By the time he’s out of the bathroom and ready to start making food, Akira is already in his kitchen. The rice cooker is going, and he’s rummaging through the cabinets humming to himself. 

“Goro, do you like tamago kake gohan?” Akira finally looks away to glance at Goro. 

“I mean sure, but I thought I said  _ I  _ was going to make breakfast for us.”

“I like cooking,” Akira dismisses. 

Which more than likely means Goro isn’t trusted in the kitchen to make anything edible. Which he’s been getting better at, but...Akira is probably the better choice here. 

Still. 

“This is my house and you’re my guest. I can’t make you cook for me.”

“You aren’t making me do anything, I want to,” Akira insists. 

“I can make us coffee then.”

Akira grimaces. 

“Please don’t. We can have coffee at Leblanc.”

“Snob,” Goro accuses. 

“Listen.” Akira turns to him with a hand on his hip. “You can’t act like you weren’t addicted to my coffee.” 

“I’ve lived this long off of my own instant coffee, thank you.” 

“You drink instant?!” Akira throws his hands up. 

“Obviously.”

“I can’t believe you would do this to me.”

“I didn’t do it to spite you.”

Akira looks at Goro like he doesn’t really believe him, and Goro finally breaks and laughs. He moves closer, pressing into Akira’s space without even touching him. 

Akira rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. 

“Come on, Kira, you have to let me do  _ something _ .” Goro leans against the counter. 

Akira goes red at the nickname and moves away to grab eggs out of the fridge. 

“You can crack the eggs,” he relents. 

Akira comes back with the carton, setting it next to Goro. And he doesn’t move away. Not immediately, he looks at Goro first like he’s studying him. He’s still a little flushed, adorably. 

Goro thinks about kissing him. He leans in slightly, watching carefully to see what Akira will do. 

His eyelashes flutter, and he blushes darker. He doesn’t move away, he doesn’t move at all. But he licks his lips. 

That’s it, Goro has to kiss him. 

And then the rice cooker goes off. 

Akira moves away to take it out, and Goro looks up at his ceiling and frowns. What kind of timing is that, honestly? 

Akira lets Goro crack the eggs, but he does everything else himself. Not that it’s much, just soy and mixing and portioning. 

They eat sitting on the couch together, shoulders barely brushing. They don’t talk, and Goro doesn’t even bother switching on the TV. How they are has always been comfortable like this, as nice as their debates are. 

When they’re done, Goro washes the dishes and then they leave. They get on the train and press together standing together all the way there. They don’t talk here either, but Akira looks at things on his phone and lets Goro watch him. Goro hands over his new phone number so Akira can put him back in the group chat, and he and Akira laugh when everyone freaks out. 

Makoto and Haru aren’t around, but everyone else meets them at Leblanc. They’re all scattered around the booths and at the bar stools, and Sojiro barely looks up when they walk inside. 

But everyone else moves. Ryuji hugs him so tightly Goro worries about suffocating, and everyone starts talking over each other at once. Even Sumire is here, even Futaba. 

Goro apologizes to them, and then to Sojiro. None of them accept his apology, simply dismissing it as unnecessary. 

They all stick around when Akira drags him to the corner booth and puts the chessboard between them. 

Sojiro brings them both curry about halfway through the match, but otherwise nobody bothers them. Akira is good at chess, but not quite good enough. Not enough that Goro doesn’t beat him anyway, pulling a pout from him when Goro tips his king over and says, “Checkmate, dear.”

But they still go up to the attic with everyone, even if it’s just to play video games and switch on a movie when everyone gets bored of that. Goro curls up in Akira’s very uncomfortable makeshift bed and lets Akira flit between everything. Sometimes he’s laying with Goro, sometimes he’s on the couch, sometimes at his desk, sometimes running downstairs to see if Sojiro needs anything. 

Goro just makes room for him whenever he looks like he wants to be close to him. 

Once the movie is over, everyone disperses. 

And Goro brings Akira back to the jazz club. They’ve never been there like this, never as Kurusu Akira and Goro, the god. And still, they settle back into it easily as if that doesn’t even matter. Akira is quieter like this, he lets Goro do most of the talking. He doesn’t push back as hard, he isn’t nearly as combative. Still, he drinks and eats what Goro orders for them, and quietly says he’s happy when prompted. 

Goro shouldn’t go back to Leblanc, he told himself he wouldn’t. He left his phone charger at his apartment and didn’t bring any clothes and told Akira he’d have to go back, that neither of them could spend the night again. 

But when they’ve already lingered an hour after they’re done eating, and Akira’s eyes shine over in half fear and half begging…

“Fine,” Goro groans. “I don’t have class until later, I suppose. But you can’t skip.”

“I won’t! I just need to confirm this wasn’t a dream in the morning.”

“You already did that  _ this  _ morning,” Goro points out. 

“And I promise this is the last time. I just need tonight.”

Goro remembers a deal Akechi Goro made with Akira. 

“One night wasn't enough?” Goro teases.

Akira blushes and wordlessly shakes his head. 

Sojiro laughs when Goro walks through the doors of Leblanc again, immediately grabbing his things to leave. 

“I’ll lock up,” Akira offers sheepishly.

“I know you will.” Sojiro puts a hand over Akira’s shoulder with a small smile. “I’m just glad to see you happy again, kid.”

There’s nowhere else to sleep in the attic, because Goro is too tall for the couch and he’s not about to sleep on the floor. It leaves him to curl up next to Akira and let him stare. 

“Go to sleep,” Goro snaps after fifteen minutes.

He’d think that even Akira would have his fill by now. 

“You first,” Akira whispers back. 

“No, because then you won’t sleep.”

“That’s not true.”

“It very obviously is.”

“I can’t. What if you disappear?”

“I thought we’ve gone over the fact that I’m real,” Goro sighs, but still turns over. 

Akira blinks at him in the dark, eyes big and awake. 

“I’m still unconvinced.”

“Just go to sleep. I promise I’ll be here when you wake up. I’ll probably still be asleep when you leave for school.”

Akira makes a pained noise.

“But you’ll be gone when I get back.”

“I can’t move in, Akira.”

“Why not?” he whines petulantly. 

“We both go to school. And not ones anywhere near each other anymore. Otherwise…” Goro shakes his head fondly and kisses Akira. “Otherwise, I would absolutely say yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Will you go to sleep now?”

Akira nods, so Goro turns back over again. He’s not surprised when Akira immediately presses against his back, wrapping solid arms around him. Goro let’s it happen without a word. 

That’s how they both fall asleep, Akira’s breaths the first to even off. Once Goro is sure he’s asleep for good, he drifts off too. 

This becomes a routine for them, that they see each other once classes are over Saturday into Sunday. Sometimes Akira gets impatient and demands they do something halfway through the week, and sometimes Goro gets sick of waiting too and will show up at Leblanc randomly just for the look on Akira’s face when he walks through the door after school. 

Goro is still waiting. He can’t just hand the win over to Akira after everything, after all. There’s just one thing he’s really expecting from Akira now. He knows he’ll get it. 

And he does. He’s laying in bed with Akira at home, because they didn’t end up going back to Leblanc for dinner and Sojiro told him it was fine to stay with Goro. They’re staring at the ceiling, up at the glow in the dark stars Akira stood on a chair to stick to it. They are meticulously arranged into real constellations, and sometimes Goro finds they light up his room so much it’s hard to sleep. But he doesn’t dare take them down. 

Because Akira is tracing them with his finger and reminding Goro of which are which, even though he has them memorized by now. 

“I love you,” Goro tells him. 

And Akira pauses. He turns on his side so he’s facing Goro, so Goro mirrors him. 

“Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer, because you might not know anyway. But I feel like you know, somehow.”

Goro nods easily, smiling at him. 

Akira takes his hand and pulls it to his face, kissing over his knuckles. 

“In the engine room, why did I say that? ‘I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.’ I don’t really remember it. And I don’t remember if you said anything back. I said it again before...before Maruki’s Palace.”

That would be Akira’s little saying. Throughout all of their lives in this game, it’s always the first way he confesses, or a way he slips it into their lives. He’s only ever missed it once, the life he completely and utterly slipped right past Goro entirely. 

Goro had expected it that time, of course. Akira has a knack for doing exactly as Goro expects and wants him to do. The saying is sweet, though, and it never fails to make every iteration of Akechi Goro feel like he’s truly loved for the first time. 

The Kurusu Akira in front of him doesn’t know that, can barely remember the version of him that remembers. But he...knows. He feels like Goro would know. That’s interesting.

And Akechi Goro didn’t really give him a response. Not one that mattered. Akechi Goro never gave Akira anything but pain and betrayal. Not until it was too late, not until the confession hurt Akira even more. 

But that was then. Goro is here now. Goro has been trying to make up for it every moment he’s been here. 

“I couldn’t tell you why you said what you did. I wonder if it wasn’t shock, desperation, the beginning of grief setting in.” Goro sighs. “And in the moment I know I didn’t give you a proper response. I know I was too late with us, never had the right timing to actually...But I’m trying to do it now. I can answer you now.”

“You’re different,” Akira points out.

“I am. People change. I was a very different person when I was in those circumstances. You’re different too. We’re still here, aren’t we? We’re still doing all of this.”

“I know.”

Akira looks at him. It’s like his eyes are peering right into Goro’s soul, trying to climb inside his chest for a peek. He’s being so very human. He’s still holding his hands, and his face is only illuminated by the light glow of the stars on the ceiling. 

“Why do I own a pan flute? I don’t even know how to play one.”

Akira is a sentimental bastard. Goro sighs and shrugs. He wonders when Akira bought that, what his plan was for it. 

“Did you want to learn?”

Akira squints down at their joined hands.

“Maybe?”

Akira looks back at him. Goro watches him think. He’s got this cute little furrow in his brows, and after a moment of thinking he moves his other hand to go up to his chin. It’s the same as Akechi Goro’s mannerism, and this Akira picked it up from him. 

Goro just watches him with a gentle smile, and waits patiently. He could wait for Akira here like this forever.

“I’m still confused, I think? I don’t—“

Goro holds up his hand before Akira can start rambling. And he starts to hum their song. Akira’s eyes spark, and he seems to hold his breath for the entirety of the song. But of course he’s breathing, because he’s human and he has to breathe. 

It’s just shallow, quiet, like he doesn't want to interrupt by even something involuntary like that. 

“Goro.  _ Goro,  _ that--”

“Akira, we are soulmates,” Goro says easily. “I’m sure given a million lifetimes we’d find each other in each one. You have irrevocably changed my life and only for the better. You’ve changed  _ me _ . The time apart from you only proved to me that a life without you is boring and monotone. Seeing you again has given me reasons to smile and laugh more. My mouth sort of hurts from it right now. Ever since you came back into my life, things have exponentially gotten better. I’m happy, Akira. I--”

“Can I say it first?”

Goro tilts his head at Akira, and gets only an overjoyed grin back.

“Sure.”

“I love you too.”

Goro closes his eyes and takes Akira’s hands.

“Akira, I have loved you since long before my eyes knew you.” Goro presses Akira’s hands to his chest. “Because my soul has always known and always loved you.”

“Is this really our first...time doing this?” Akira asks him, eyes stormy and dark and knowing. “Because it all feels really familiar. I knew that song, but I know I’ve never heard it before.”

“Not in this life, you haven’t. But hey, where’s my speech?” Goro complains.

“I ate dirt for you. My face still hurts. But I don’t...fucking care because every single time I see you I feel like nothing could possibly ruin that. Nothing is so bad if you’re alive. And happy. And here, with me. You make everything better, you make  _ me  _ better.”

“Can you say it?” Goro asks softly. 

“I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“I was having fun too. Living this life with you has been so nice recently,” Goro mourns, brushing Akira’s hair back. “But a deal is a deal. You saved Akechi Goro.”

“I knew it. I—“

“Akira. Look at me.”

Akira looks at him.

“Look at you...” Goro laughs to himself. “So human. You win, Akira, my flame.”

Goro blinks his eyes open and they’re home. Akira has cut himself off, still holding onto Goro although he seems entirely floored.

“My love?” Goro prods.

Akira picks him up and swings him around. He kisses him all over as he laughs, then sets him down just to yank him closer and start to dance a waltz with him. 

“You brilliant, wonderful God,” Akira praises. “Of course you had an agenda. Cunning bastard.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“You know it did.”

Goro kisses Akira softly, in no rush now that the game has concluded.

“I suppose I lost,” Goro sighs dramatically. “What ever will I do?”

Akira’s claws dig into his side as he laughs along with him.

“You...you never wanted to win! I knew at the end of my last attempt, I wouldn’t have gone on any other way.”

“Obviously. But I got what I wanted, so I suppose in my own way I won anyway.”

“Infuriating. I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Your worlds were so...beautiful. I adored chasing you every life, and recognizing the characters after a while. The stories you wove were just wonderful, and some of them may have hurt but I know they were supposed to. You always surprised me, at every turn.”

Goro smiles fondly at his husband. He knows Akira must’ve been thinking this the whole time, bursting to tell him.

“Perhaps you should try your hand at it,” he offers.

“I think I will.”

“Did you mean it?” Goro asks, wistful and happy. 

“Mean what?”

“Your little...thing.”

“Goro, I’ve been in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you,” Akira confesses, pulling him into the clouds with him. “It’s true. I saved you because I already loved you.”

Goro knew as much, but Akira always humors him anyway. 

“Would you like to hear a secret, my flame?” Goro asks sweetly. 

“Of course.” 

“I let you save me because I loved you too.” 

Akira smiles at him, flashing teeth he seems so pleased. 

“Would you like to play again?” Goro prompts. 

“Not yet. I think we should take a break first.” 

“Alright, love. What do you want to do?”

“Rearrange the clouds with you. Promise I won’t mess them up this time.”

Goro knows he will. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> waaaa i kept putting off posting this because i didnt want it to be over. I honestly still think it might need a bit of work, I might at some point go back through and polish up the whole work but I wanted to get this out at least for now! THANK YOU ALL SM. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I really hope you all did as well. I'm sad it's over, but I'm happy to have finished it and be able to work on other things as well! I hope I see you all around <3

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to chat or ask questions, or really anything, come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Elsey_8)


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